


the voice of kings

by StormySkiesAhead



Series: speak to those who travel the skies (see what you learn) [2]
Category: Primeval, various - Fandom
Genre: "oops we helped the villain", (gabriel and anna & nina respectively), Aepycamelus, Asexual Character, Dinosaurs, Dunkleosteus, Epicyon, Established Relationship, F/F, Feathered Tyrannosaurs, Future Predators, Gen, Historical Accuracy, Historical Accuracy Attempted, Look There's A Canon Character, M/M, Mastodon, Mild descriptions of violence, Moondancers, Neohipparion, Pelagornis, Prionosuchus, Procedural format, Quetzalcoatlus, Team as Family, Telepathy, Thalattoarchon, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, WHAT????, archosauripathy, bc texas is too big for it to work, but that's mostly bc i was like hey what? we can do oc-centric fics here? hell yeah!, daspletosaurus, fic about a team in the northeast USA written by a texan, i'm tagging the oc's for this bc i want to make this more expansive, jk lester's going to be the only canon character in this thing, mild mention of a team near chennai that would probably be way more interesting, mildly inspired by the primeval australia project, probably, this name is because "the voice of tyrants" didn't sit quite as well with me, yes it's this again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 60,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22262026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormySkiesAhead/pseuds/StormySkiesAhead
Summary: There’s a quiet, that hangs heavy in the air. It’s disturbed by a soft pulse, from time to time, the glimmer of light through shattered glass.The soldiers shuffle their feet, hands tight around their weapons- not from fear, but from the fact that if they dare loosen their grips, their guns will fly forwards from their hands and into the light. Some dig their feet into the earth, too lightweight to resist the fierce pull of the… whatever it is.There is a distant roar, like the rumble of thunder or the stomp of an elephant. They tighten their hands around their guns even more- this time, it is in fear, adrenalin spiking from the sound of something so natural to fear.The issue with that, of course, as one young woman notes with a start, spinning around (not fast enough, they will never be fast enough) is that the sound hadn’t come from in front of them.-Or: Anomalies aren't just limited to the UK, and sometimes it's better to beg for help than to keep your head high and do it yourself, but also, the UK team is stretched very thin so sometimes you don't get much besides advice anyways
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: speak to those who travel the skies (see what you learn) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602481
Kudos: 4





	1. the pack (part one)

**Author's Note:**

> let's get this party started people!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why do i hurt myself with starting new works in progress? i should stick to oneshots

There’s a quiet, that hangs heavy in the air. It’s disturbed by a soft pulse, from time to time, the glimmer of light through shattered glass.

The soldiers shuffle their feet, hands tight around their weapons- not from fear, but from the fact that if they dare loosen their grips, their will fly forwards from their hands and into the light. Some dig their feet into the earth, too lightweight to resist the fierce pull of the… whatever it is.

There is a distant roar, like the rumble of thunder or the stomp of an elephant. They tighten their hands around their guns even more-  _ this _ time, it  _ is _ in fear, adrenalin spiking from the sound of something so natural to fear.

The issue with that, of course, as one young woman notes with a start, spinning around (not fast enough, they will never be fast enough) is that the sound hadn’t come from in front of them.

They find the blood on the floor in the morning. Some of it isn’t the soldiers’- a few incredibly lucky shots, to hit a carnivore moving that fast, but-

But the only bodies amongst the carnage are human.

* * *

Detective Emma Banks is a quiet woman. She’s never been anything but, really. A Boston cop from Oklahoma, used to seeing the most bizarre of cases cross her desk. She’d been active during  _ Reaper _ days, for crying out loud, when the city had held its breath as the blood of its lovers ran through the streets. But this? This is fucking  _ nuts. _

Several people dead, she can understand. But trained,  _ armed _ soldiers? Several of  _ them? _ And none dead from the assailants, either- one injury, obviously, but-

But while the lab hadn’t been able to tell  _ much _ \- DNA testing takes a  _ long _ time, after all- within the first few days, they’d heard that it wasn’t anything close to human- the chromosome count is completely off. Emma might not know much about DNA, but she knows any count other than the twenty-three pairs humans have means-

Animal attack. Emma can work with that. She digs a hand into her scalp, between faintly greying braids, and sighs.

But an animal attack would have resulted in the death of the animal. Not in a group of untrained, unarmed civilians maybe, but with six well-armed soldiers? At least one would have been able to fire a shot good enough to fell one of the usual exotics- a crocodilian, maybe, could have gotten through well enough, but there would be prints- familiar prints- on the floor. There was  _ nothing _ here, only a feather or five and a bizarre three-toed footprint trail obviously meant to bring the conspiracy theorists out, most notably because it vanishes into the middle of the room.

It’s probably a magical attack, but the magical division is insistent it’s very much not.

Emma sighs, and twitches a pen between her fingers as she walks. If she was superstitious, she might have stayed in tonight- the sky rumbles ominously in a way she knows means a dry electrical storm, and the streetlamps look on the fritz.

Something darts out of the corner of her vision. Emma spins, pulling her gun from its holster, and breathes deeply.

She must be seeing things. She sighs, and replaces her firearm.

If she’d been listening to the wildlife instead of the thunder, she might have heard the curious chirp, like the scaled-up distress call of a hatchling alligator. She does hear the warning hiss of a human voice, afterwards, and spins again.

Emma could  _ swear _ she sees the flash of golden eyes and hears a pained whimper- a  _ human _ whimper (well, human and  _ something _ else, but definitely mostly human), and when the lightning flashes again, she sees the reflective green glow of eyeshine in the dark.

“It’s just a raccoon, Emma,” she tells herself, “You’re not going crazy.”

Maybe she does subscribe to the superstition about nights like this, just a little bit.

She wonders why the soldiers were there, in the first place, and resolves to dig.

Emma doesn’t notice the whispering in the back of her head, cheering her on.

* * *

Major David Hewitt stares at the file that crosses his desk. He stares back up, for a moment, incredulousness clear on his face, then back down to the file, then back up.

“Dinosaurs.”

“The Sergeant saw what she saw, and apparently, being a paleontology major for a degree you’ll never use has its benefits. It’s a tyrannosaur of some sort- well, several tyrannosaurs. Apparently most of them got through before the- I don’t think we’ve got a word for it yet, but I heard the Brits do, maybe ask them?- closed, but they seemed upset about  _ something. _ ”

David sighs, attempting to rub his headache away. It’s not working. Something in the woman’s demeanor, though, tips him off, and David sits up in his chair, grief aching deep in his bones.

“How many did we lose?” he asks.

“Six, sir. All of the ones guarding whatever it was-” David’s going to have to talk to Captain Spinner about using a proper word for the occurence, he’ll also have to ask around to see what that proper word actually is- “And one near the door. Sergeant Daniels is a bit of a mess, but that’s to be expected, since she apparently saw a dinosaur eat her friends.”

“And she said it was…”

“A Zhuchengtyrannus, apparently. A Tyrannosaurus from China. Sergeant Daniels is under the impression that whatever the glowing thing was is a space portal in addition to a time portal.”

“And why does she believe this is a…”

“A Zhuchengtyrannus, sir?”

“Yes. That.”

“Apparently, the skull beneath the meat was probably too thin to be a Tyrannosaurus skull, and it was too light overall to be a Tyrannosaurus. There were juveniles present, to an extent- the adults were clearly that size, not bigger, and Sergeant Daniels compared the size she remembers to photos of Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons. Also, she quits.”

David sighs again, and stands.

“Did she offer any suggestions?”

“A paleontology professor at Brandeis that she sent the photos to, sir- a Professor Zachary Taylor.”

“As in the  _ president? _ ”

“There was a president named Zachary Taylor?”

David sighs for the third time, and resists the urge to reach for anything that will stop his growing headache. He manages to bite one more thing out before he grabs his coat, hanging on the door of his office.

“I don’t blame you, Captain, but I say this with all of my heart as a product of it:  _ Curse _ the subpar American education system.”

“Oh, and one more thing, sir,” Captain Spinner says, barest hints of a smile falling from her face as she remembers, visibly shaken, “Apparently, six animals left the portal-thing- three adults, two large juveniles, and a baby.”

David thinks he might actually puke in horror. He’s never done that before. He quietly pricks himself with a thumbtack to insure he’s not just asleep and having a nightmare.

“How many went back?”

“Four.”

* * *

“My name’s Zachary Mason- Zach Mason, actually, I changed it when I got married,” Zach says, inclining his head with a smile, flashing his ring finger gladly, “We had a rushed ceremony with the first person able to marry us when it was legalized, actually. My wedding was in my sweatpants, and I would not have it any other way.”

The Major seems to relax, tension bleeding out of his shoulders. Zach’s glad for that, it seems like these two have had quite the day, and if the photo Anna (Sergeant Daniels, he remembers, they’d know one of his brightest students as the half terrified out of her mind Sergeant Daniels) is accurate, well-

Zach’s pretty sure he knows the  _ cause _ of the stress.

“I take it you received the photograph from Sergeant Daniels?” Captain Spinner- Maria, she said to call her Maria- says, and Zach nods.

“Wasn’t a well-made fake, then. I agree with her assessment of a Tyrannosaur, but I think she might be off on the species- it’s not quite large enough for a  _ Zhuchengtyrannus _ . I don’t think, at least. The skull is rather large- not as large or bulky as a  _ Tyrannosaurus Rex _ skull, she’s right about that, but it’s long enough that I’d say perhaps  _ Daspletosaurus? _ ”

“Do you think you’d be able to help us find the ones that escaped?” the Captain asks. They’re both shaken, it seems, but it looks like the Captain has the better of it. Zach blinks, and takes in the horror still present on their faces, and-

“How many people died?”

“Seven. Six died on site, we had to leave them there before the police arrived. The seventh died at the hospital.”

Zach feels bile rise in his throat.

“Which ones escaped?”

“A juvenile or subadult and a hatchling, apparently.”

That’s better, at the very least. The only real threat is probably the subadult- the hatchling is only an issue because it might attract any escaped adults back into the area.

“I’m sorry, but how is this possible?” he asks.

“We don’t know,” Major Hewitt says, “And we can’t discuss this here. Apparently there’s a research team studying these sorts of phenomena that we can ask some basic questions, but they’re still asleep at the moment. I’ll call sometime around midnight or one next morning, and keep you updated.”

* * *

James Lester stares at the American Major who’d somehow managed to acquire his phone number and call him via the worse alternative to Skype. The Major stares back at him.

“You’re asking about the anomalies,” Lester says, and the Major’s shoulders sag in relief.

“That’s the word for them? All we’re aware of is the fact that dinosaurs broke into a warehouse in Charlestown and killed seven members of a military research team studying magnetism in the location.”

“Yes, we refer to them as anomalies. I do hope you have a team put together for this sort of thing,” he says, and the Major shakes his head.

“Any help you can offer is appreciated, any at all.”

Lester narrows his eyes, and leans forwards.

“You’d have to be considered an extension of our Anomaly Research Center-” Lester begins, before the Major’s head snaps up, desperation in his eyes.

“Done. They’re asking to consider it as such anyways, you should be getting the paperwork soon.”

“They?”

“Upstairs, the brass, whatever you want to call it,” the Major says, with a wave of the hand, “Again, I’d appreciate  _ any _ advice you have to offer. I understand you’re probably stretched when it comes to experienced personnel, I’d never ask you to lend us any of your people-”

“And they wouldn’t go,” Lester continues for him, “Advice- we can do advice. I’d suggest taking down notes.”

The Major reaches for a notepad, and smiles.

* * *

Emma thinks she might actually be going crazy.

One of the flower pots full of oregano has been knocked over. Normally, she’d assume it was one of her cats- both Peaches and Grapefruit enjoy knocking over pots. But this one- this one has a three-toed footprint in it. Like the one from the warehouse, just  _ smaller. _

Miniscule, in fact.

The shoeprint is particularly damning, as well. Size eleven shoes, worn tread from the general lack of serious displacement. Emma unholsters her gun.

There’s a sound, like the crackle of a bag, and Emma turns. It’s probably the fact that Emma asks questions first and shoots after (if she shoots at all) that saves the kid’s life (Emma is a firm believer that if you can’t de-escalate a situation, you shouldn’t be allowed a firearm).

He’s sixteen or so, taller than most adults, with dark brown eyes that flash gold as the pot he’s holding zips back into the cupboard of its own accord.

“I figured you wouldn’t mind much,” he says, “You seem nice enough, and I think I saw enough of what happened to give a better idea.”

Emma holsters her weapon as the boy whistles, and a  _ dinosaur _ scrambles into her kitchen. She stares, slack-jawed, and shakes her head, before a smile breaks out on her face.

She has a  _ witness. _

* * *

There’s an insistent knocking at her door. Maria groans, and slogs her way through the kind of tiredness that being woken up after two hours of sleep after a thirty-plus hour day brings to make it to said door before whoever it is gives up.

“Boston Police Department, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” the woman on her doorstep says, and Maria groans under her breath this time. There’s a teenager waiting near the bottom of the steps with a strange-looking duffel thrown over his shoulder.

“The kid can come in, too,” she says. The detective (Maria  _ thinks _ , at least) nods, and the kid’s head snaps up.

“Sorry for watching you and the Major and the Professor, by the way, it was  _ really _ weird and I wanted to know what happened. Detective Banks is really nice, I promise.”

He’s got an accent that seems pitched halfway between very light New York and slightly thicker Southern. Maria wracks her brain for where she’s heard such a mix before, or at least where the two accents are more likely to congregate, and-

“You from Atlanta, Georgia, kid?”

“Yes ma’am, but I spent a lot of time in small towns as a kid. Most people think I’m a New Yorker at first, actually.”

He unzips the duffel bag, and a dinosaur pokes its head out. Maria can’t think of anything else at the moment besides the fact that the dinosaur looks exactly like one of those dogs in duffel bags on the subway photos she’s been looking at when she can.

“I think I need to call Hewitt and Mason, give me a minute,” Maria says half-breathlessly. The kid grins, and goes back to chatting amicably with the dinosaur.

The thing gives out a few choice squeaks, and Maria narrows her eyes. She knows communication mutations are a thing- she can speak to snakes, after all, and she has a friend who can speak to bears- but she’d never met someone who can talk to dinosaurs.

Actually, scratch that. If birds are dinosaurs, then she knows quite a few people who can speak to at least one type of dinosaur (the most common is Goose). And she’s  _ heard _ of a kid in the UK that can speak to both birds and crocodilians when she’d talked to a man who could only speak to crocodiles and was bitter about it. It could be a similar mutation, it could not be. The thick coat of feathers suggests that things like that might snake up a significant distance.

Maria shrugs her shoulders, picks up the immense python on the countertop, and goes to grab the phone she’d left charging in the other room so an exhausted Hewitt wouldn’t bombard her with phone calls at one o’ clock in the morning. She winces at the number of missed calls- Major Hewitt called her at least a half-dozen times before giving up (somewhere around two in the morning, actually), and from the three missed phone calls and seven missed texts from Professor Mason, he’d wrangled the paleontologist out of bed somewhere closer to three in the morning, and then sent him after her.

Maria stares at the juvenile Daspletosaurus that’s now jumped from the duffel bag and is chirping excitedly on the floor, hopping up and down like a child. It’s somewhere around the size of a large dog, though, and just as heavy (well, not quite as heavy). Maria wonders how in the hell the kid’s managed to carry the thing for this long.

There’s a crash, as the tyrannosaur’s tail slaps into one of the empty water glasses that Maria’s had lying around. The kid’s flinch is full-body, and he stares at his feet, unmoving, for a few more beats than Maria is comfortable with. She sees the detective’s eyes narrow in suspicion, and wonders if they’re both thinking the same thing. Actually, they almost definitely are, from the soothing tone that Detective Banks’s voice takes. The kid smiles back, just a little bit shaky (no, more than that), and curls up in on himself on the couch. The dinosaur hops up beside him, desperate for attention. Maria smiles good-naturedly and realizes with a start that she hasn’t even asked the kid’s  _ name. _

“Gabriel,” he says once she asks, and the sunny smile returns in force, “My name’s Gabriel Azose.”

* * *

Lester sits back at his desk and blinks once, twice, three times at the wall in front of him. He rolls his chair backwards, and stares out the window to take one good look at his own team, the new addition bouncing between them like a squirrel after several shots of espresso. They’re settling in rather well, again, with bright grins and new experiences. None of them have seen a dinosaur as big as the Daspletosaurus apparently currently roaming Boston, Massachusetts, and hopefully they never will- the Allosaurus is  _ close _ , but not  _ quite _ as overwhelmingly large.

Seven dead, at least, and that’s all they  _ know about _ .

To hell with it, Lester’s going to offer them help, no matter whether or not the Minister yells at him for it. He’s already offered some, but he’s going to need to actually ask whether or not he can send over the schematics for the detector if he doesn’t want to lose his job.

They can’t know, Lester decides as he surveys the team. It won’t really distract them, and it’s not like they’d leave for the States, anyways, for healthcare reasons if nothing else, but they  _ can’t know. _ The stress will likely do nothing but hurt them in the long run. Maybe someone else will start up a team, maybe not. Heaven knows that whatever team Major Hewitt founds will likely only end up servicing the Northeastern United States for that reason.

There’s another call, a buzzing on his desk. Lester picks up the phone.

This one’s from India. They’re asking for advice, too, except whoever’s on the other end of  _ this _ line is far less desperate and far more confrontational. Lester smiles, leans back in his chair, and begins his favorite pastime:

Arguing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. SO.  
> mild slowburn between nina (introduced next chapter) and maria. established relationship is between zachary and andrew mason, aka Science Husbands.  
> Almost everyone has some kind of magic- anna is a single-form shapeshifter, gabe is... gabe (he's OP like shosh is but in a slightly different flavor once you get past the initial similarities, also they're cousins and he's a missing family member i tried desperately to foreshadow in the thunder rumbles), david is weird but he's never figured out what his power is, nina Knows Things (like as a power she's not JUST smart), maria is the mutant equivalent to a parselmouth, andrew is telekinetic, zach has *very* mild foresight, and emma... is just very perceptive. she's 100% human, no weirdness at all.


	2. the pack (part two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel thinks, personally, that Captain Spinner's house has too many snakes.  
> (or: the team gets together, properly this time, to take down a daspletosaurus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so tired and I just got back in the country but i will write as much as I can

Gabriel thinks, personally, that Captain Spinner’s house has too many snakes.

He hadn’t noticed on the way in, but the fact that he’d had to stop the fluffy almost-orange hatchling from eating a very angry hognose that was just… slithering around on the floor… and that he’d had an actual carpet python fall onto his head cement that very firmly in his brain.

Most of the snakes are in terrariums, lounging under heat lamps or lazily staring at him.

_ “Sure can’t eat?” _ the orange (he’s calling the color orange, at the very least) baby asks, placing a fluffy head in Gabriel’s lap. The teenager sinks his hands into the Daspletosaurus’s fluff, then blinks, and picks the baby up.

_ “Put down!” _ the Daspletosaurus chirps angrily. Gabriel coos at her, and runs a hand down her raised spine to calm her, before taking a closer look at her thick fluff.

The scales on her feet and along the underside of her tail and around her mouth all look more like bird scales than other reptile scales (which disputes a few theories resting in the back of Gabriel’s head). She’s a sweet little thing, and calms down soon enough when he asks her to, rubbing behind her ear holes and under her chin, where feathers give way to scales again.

He’d seen the adults and subadults. Their feathers aren’t nearly as thickly covering as this little girl’s are- instead, their heads are mostly bare, with a thin stretch of scales reaching past the halfway point and a little down the neck. They’re thickly feathered (above scales- he can feel scales under the baby’s feathery coat) up to the legs and tail, where the legs are covered but there is a dramatic lack of them where she is missing feathers, too. They come back closer to the end of the tail in full force. Gabriel spies a sheet of paper and a pen, and begins to sketch.

The door opens. Gabriel bends on top of the Daspletosaurus hatchling he’s decided to call Clementine for the moment, and clutches her to his chest when he hears a choked gasp.

He looks up. The woman from the warehouse is there- Sergeant Daniels, he thinks he heard her name was? She stares unblinking at Clementine.

_ “Why she here? She  _ bad, _ hurt mommy, _ ” Clementine growls. Gabriel clutches the dinosaur tighter to his chest.

“I don’t think Clementine here likes you very much,” he admits, before turning to the dinosaur in question, “And your ma hurt her friends, she had every right to hurt her back. And your ma’s tough, I’m sure she’s fine.”

Clementine squeaks. Sergeant Daniels sits down, and sighs.

“You are?”

“Gabriel Azose, this is Clementine,” he says, holding up the hatchling, “And the tyrannosaur we’re looking for is a partially leucistic sub-adult, the largest of the three that weren’t full adults. They went… northwest, I’m pretty sure. I followed them for a while, they were pretty good at staying out of sight for something of their size. I only had to make a few people forget along the way. I figured it would be a bad idea to get into an argument with them if I didn’t have anywhere to lead them, so I got them to an area relatively devoid of people and thickly forested about seven or eight miles north of where I found them, and came back this way looking for someone else to handle it.”

“You’re saying you know where to find it?” a man at the door asks. He’s the palest member of this little group so far, a fact exacerbated by the artificial pale from lack of sunlight and an abundance of fear. His hair is blonde but greying fast, and he sits down in an armchair rather roughly. Another man follows him, with a shining smile and a ring on his finger that the first lacks.

“You are…” Gabriel trails off, cocking his head.

“Major David Hewitt, this is Professor Zachary Mason-”

“Call me Zach,” the man says, and extends his hand for a fist-bump. Gabriel stares at it curiously, before hesitantly reciprocating.

“Gabriel Azose. The hatchling’s name is Clementine.”

“Because she’s orange?” Zach asks. Gabriel nods.

_ “What they saying? _ ” Clementine asks, wiggling.

“They’re introducing themselves.”

“I’m sorry if this is invasive,” Major Hewitt says, “But do you have an animal communication based mutation?”

Gabriel grins, and nods once, sharply.

“Archosaurs, as far as I can tell. When I was little I had a screaming match with a mama alligator that my dad had to break up, and I’ve been talking to birds ever since I could talk.”

“Good, good. Do you think you could talk sense into the Daspletosaurus?” Hewitt asks. Gabriel narrows his eyes, and nods firmly again.

This is going to be a long day, he knows that much.

* * *

David Hewitt has quite possibly the most scatterbrained team he can scrounge together, but it's workable.

Banks is probably going to end up leading the team.

He’s likely going to be at a desk the entire time, Spinner is a good leader but not when it comes to research biologists (she can lead soldiers but civilians are out of the question), Daniels is still recovering, Mason can't lead a team to save his life, and Azose is a sixteen year old homeless kid… with a dropped murder charge.

That’s. That's definitely something. David is going to drop that and forget it as soon as it becomes an option. It's a dropped charge (something in the file about self-defense, but it also screams cover-up at him at a surprisingly effective volume) anyways. This is going to be fine. This is going to be just  _ fine. _

It's not going to be fine. There’s a dinosaur- and not the flying kind- in Spinner’s home. His best bet consists of two soldiers, a cop, a professor who can't fire a gun for shit and a sixteen year old boy.

David drags a pillow to his chest and resists the urge to hyperventilate.

“We need,” he finally manages, voice weak, “ _ someone _ who can handle large animals. And someone who can take a look at the physics side of this-”

“My husband is a physicist? I know it's a bit strange, but he’s more likely to keep his mouth shut since I'm already in the know.”

David turns to Zachary, who pulls on the edge of his beard lightly, clearly nervous, and looks back at Azose, who cocks his head like a confused puppy and pulls the  _ orange  _ tyrannosaur hatchling closer to his chest for comfort. He sets down the tablet, and waits.

Detective Banks and Captain Spinner meander back into the room, a python suspended between them. Sergeant Daniels sits on the edge of the couch. Clementine the Daspletosaurus wiggles forwards and chirps excitedly.

This is his team, he guesses.

“Alright,” says David, accepting his fate for the moment, “Let’s get this done.”

* * *

Professor Andrew Mason gets the call sometime around noon, and rushes to the address listed to find his husband, three women, the man who’d called him, and a teenager with a dinosaur on his lap.

“Zachary,” he says, voice flat, “Mind explaining what’s going on?”

He does. Andrew nearly nopes out of the whole thing, but sees all of the hopeful faces, and sighs in defeat.

“You should call someone who’s used to working with large animals. If these ‘anomalies’ are as common as we suspect, they’re not always going to be something the kid here can talk down, and we’re going to need someone who has experience with tranquilizers.”

The Major nods, running a hand through short-chopped sandy hair, and sighs. He does that quite a bit. Andrew thinks it’s mildly endearing- he’s worked in large teams before, and it’s always  _ someone _ who takes on the “Team Dad” persona, and this man who keeps looking at their youngest members with such concern looks like he might be the most likely candidate.

If not him, it’s going to be the detective. Andrew could bet money on it, if he wanted to.

“We’re setting up a location already,” Major David “Call me by my first name” Hewitt says, placing the phone back in his lap, “And I’m working on contacting a pair that’s used to working with tranquilizers- a wildlife biologist, Richard King, who’s used to working with and around Saltwater Crocodiles, and a large animal veterinarian by the name of Nina Griffin, who is one of the major veterinarians at the Franklin Park Zoo.”

“And why them?” Andrew finds himself asking, and David sighs,  _ again _ .

“Richard King is currently in Boston and was recommended to me by the British team, as he has some minor experience with anomalies after an incident several years prior on their soil. Nina Griffin recently left her job, after spouting a story about a fifty foot long anaconda that she was  _ absolutely certain _ was a Titanoboa that she’d seen in Vancouver. Both of them won’t have as long of an adjustment period, and they’ll likely be grateful enough about being validated to avoid spilling secrets to the general public.”

That’s… actually a fair point. Andrew gets the sneaking suspicion that Dr. Griffin will be the only one to respond, though.

He  _ hates _ being right, but he can work with it.

* * *

Doctor Nina Griffin is  _ not _ an attention-seeker, and she doesn’t hallucinate. She taps her foot rapid-fire along the ground, taptaptaptaptap, as Major Hewitt continues to pace, trying to find words to explain the situation.

She’s not worked with dinosaurs, before. Well, she has, actually, but that’s only if you could birds and while she  _ has _ worked quite a bit with birds, especially birds of prey that’s not  _ the same _ as something as large as a- she thinks he said it was a Daspletosaurus?- and besides she’s a mammal vet and wow she’s starting to panic, isn’t she?

“Hey. Breathe,” David Hewitt says, and she locks eyes with the man and holds her breath out of nothing more complex than simple spite.

Then, she remembers that unless she wants to pass out, she’s going to have to keep breathing eventually, and so, she does- heavy, gasping breaths as she takes in the enormity of what she’s being asked to do.

“You want me,” she says, “to  _ drug _ a  _ dinosaur. _ ”

“Only if they get irritable. And you’d be pulled onto the team for the long term, not just for this. You’d also mostly be out of the field or held back in reserve- we won’t ask you to be the first to deal with things like this. You’d mostly be staying back with Andrew.”

“Which Professor Mason is that?”

“The physicist. We’d also be asking you to keep an eye on Clementine’s growth progress, and assisting in the care of any creature stranded on this side of time.”

Nina narrows her eyes, and straightens her spine.

“I’ll do it,” she says, “On one condition.”

“What?” David says, leaning forwards.

“Someone figure out how to get any piece of information calling how I was fired for a nervous breakdown or assuming that I couldn’t handle the pressure to disappear. I know I’m probably going to be stuck wherever you put me for the foreseeable future, but there’s not much else I can ask for.”

David leans back, a grin on his face. There’s something in his body language that screams to Nina that she’s probably going to have to get up and start moving right about now for whatever happened to make them need her presence, but she’ll avoid going anywhere and just sit here and breathe for while she can.

“Let’s go get ourselves a second dinosaur,” he says, and Nina can’t help the smile that worms its way onto her face.

This is going to be a long, probably exceedingly bumpy, ride, but she wouldn’t miss it for the world.

* * *

They take Clementine with them. It’s somewhere between absolute stupidity and absolute genius that they do. The second point is supported by the fact that as members of the same family group- a terror of tyrannosaurs, Gabriel remembers- Clementine’s cries will likely lure her sibling back towards the transport vehicle. The first point is supported by the fact that if Clementine sounds  _ at all _ upset, it’s only going to piss off the subadult more, which is probably going to result in far more dead people and far fewer living captured tyrannosaurs than they’d been hoping for when they’d set out to look for them.

The leucistic subadult is quite possibly the largest (well, fourth largest, they were the bigger of the juveniles but still smaller than all the adults) animal that he’s ever seen in his entire life. He’s terrified, right now, though trying not to show it. They all are, really. It’s more than just mildly concerning that there’s a massive dinosaur roaming just north of Boston, and they could have started their way South, after all, which would result in a lot more dead than just the current roster of six victims.

Gabriel knows that the rest of the group knows about the archosauripathy mutation, but they probably don’t know about the… other thing. It’s not that much of an issue to him, though. Gabriel shifts skins as easy as breathing, and puts his nose to the ground for the familiar scent of feathers and fear. Clementine bounces beside him.

He can hear the mutters of a plan coming into place behind him. Daniels joins him on the ground, though her skin is different- a single-skin shifter, not a multiple like he is. A bloodhound, of all things, which is excellent, because it means that Gabriel and his frankly inferior nose can get off the ground, and he can translate for Clementine instead.

Captain Spinner has a tranq gun in her hands, and Detective Banks takes the other. Like they’d all expected, Mason #1 and #2 hang back, along with Hewitt and Griffin, which means there’s four of them in the field, unfortunately, because they haven’t managed to scrounge together anyone else, yet.

Four people to take down a tyrannosaur that probably weighs somewhere in the range of two to three short tons.

Gabriel’s not panicking. He’s  _ not. _ He follows Anna on his own paws for a little while before shifting back, gait long and loping, same as it is in his wolf-skin. Banks heads on ahead of both of them, tranquilizer gun in a white-knuckle grip. Captain Spinner tries her best to match Gabriel’s pace without running, though it’s quite difficult- Gabriel is tall even for a guy his age, and his legs are accordingly long.

Gabriel slows from his loping jog enough for Spinner to catch up. They’re getting close- Anna doesn’t bay like a normal bloodhound would when she catches the scent, but she steps carefully, cautiously. There’s a sound- Gabriel thinks the others might not be able to hear it, not until the end where the frequency drifts back into something approximating the human hearing range, but-

It’s not like any roar he’s used to. Instead, it’s a low rumble that shakes the earth. Anna picks up on it too, raising her head into the air and cocking it side to side to get a better earful.

The frequency is so low it almost drifts into infrasound. It genuinely feels more like a force then a noise, like the beginnings of a mild earthquake.

The tyrannosaur is close. So close that Gabriel can practically feel their presence. Footprints appear in the newly wet mud, immense footprints that dwarf his own. Gabriel feels a shiver run down his spine, some sort of instinctual aversion towards dealing with an immense predator over twenty times his size and two to four hundred times his weight.

Good. Those instincts might actually keep him alive. He needs to remember that this isn’t like dealing with hawks, or even crocodilians, for that matter. Birds of prey and alligators are both dangerous predators that need to have their space respected, sure, but they’re on a completely different spectrum from the Daspletosaurus who’s wandering these woods.

Speaking of- there’s a deep rumble, closer this time, and a curious warble, in a far higher pitch. The snort of breath and the surprised and terrified bark-turned-yelp of Anna’s bloodhound form switching with her human one.

_ “I do believe,” _ a voice that sounds surprisingly well put together (and Gabriel really should have suspected that, evidence suggests that tyrannosaurs, while not as smart as say, maniraptorans, were very intelligent for dinosaurs, and even for animals in general) purrs,  _ “That we are facing a bit of a dilemma, here. Care to discuss?” _

Gabriel stares into the red, red eyes, and gulps.

* * *

There is a tyrannosaur in front of him.

Zach’s seen the baby, sure, but there’s a  _ difference _ between the baby, sweet and gentle and not much different from a particularly large secretary-bird, and her subadult sister (according to the kid, she prefers she/her and can work with they/them pronouns), who is the biggest animal Zach has seen in his entire life.

She’s just a tad taller than an African Elephant, with wide, curious red eyes, and she confirms  _ so many theories  _ in the back of Zach’s head-

She’s feathered, for one. There are bald spots, sure- the feathers end relatively high on the leg, for example- the feathers  _ coexist _ with the scales and scutes, too, emerging from in between the scales and around them, where skin is visible.

Zach thinks that if he bent his head a little bit he could probably walk under her without much of an issue, she’s  _ that _ massive.

The Daspletosaurus is a pale grey, with a blue and red scaled snout and lower neck. Her feathers are thick, and her entire body is striped and speckled with white splashed on almost like a haphazard paint job. He’s seen the patterning before, on pigeons and peafowl.

She’s partially leucistic, another mutant if one wants to get technical about that sort of thing.

And she’s holding an amicable conversation with the sixteen year old they’ve dragged along.

“So, essentially, what’s going to happen is that we’ll try to find a place for you and Clementine here- well, we’re calling her Clementine because she’s orange, but if she has another name feel free to tell us about it- No? Okay. We’re going to try to find a nice, open area where you’ll be able to roam a bit, but won’t be putting the general public at risk. Well, yeah, the dominant species here is a bunch of apex predators that became apex predators because of stamina and tool use and social behavior instead of any natural weapons. Of course they’d be up in arms about their kin dying.”

The Daspletosaurus seems to be fine with that. She’s given them a name- a long, rumbling thing, probably a descriptor for a simple word that Gabriel translates as “Stratus”. Zach will have to ask the kid for the literal translation later.

The transport turns out to be an eighteen-wheeler, which doesn’t take much convincing once the kid and the hatchling voluntarily hop into it with her. Stratus backs in cautiously, head near the exit and tail near the front of the container.

Zach steps back graciously. Detective Banks drives, hands jittery on the wheel.“We have a  _ tyrannosaur _ in the back of our truck,” she says when he cocks his head curiously at her worried face.

The coordinates are close- an old research facility, a couple of minutes out from Boston. It’s clearly just starting to be fixed up, and the fencing needs some work (a lot of work), but tyrannosaurs can’t jump. He voices this concern, once he’s safely in the facility, grimy on the outside (they’re working on that) but clean, shining, and state-of-the-art on the inside.

“The fencing’s there to keep trespassers and big game hunters  _ out _ , not to keep her  _ in. _ Carnivores tend to avoid kicking up a fuss if they can get a free lunch, and there’s a corridor for deer and other large mammals to move through if she’s really getting bored.”

Zach stares out the window (the only large, clean window in this entire facility) at the massive theropod, who inclines her head. The kid clings to the feathers on her back, clearly half asleep.

This is going to be  _ fun. _

He doesn’t know how he’ll manage to keep teaching his students while working on this, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gabriel is team baby. also, hi nina! the "main six" are emma, gabriel, nina, anna, maria, and zach, turn it to seven if you want to add david (andrew is technically a member of the main team, but he's not a constant member of the team since his expertise lies out of the main action). david gets an eight seater minivan so they can all ride together.  
> 3 and 4 are (probably) going to be a bit more plot and mildly intimidating magic heavy, but once that's through I can focus on my one true calling: team bonding shitposts  
> and yes gabriel did get a dinosaur-back-ride without asking bc you think stratus is going to neglect her duties as the biggest, scariest person there? hell no!


	3. where the warmth comes from

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is something evil lurking in the water.  
> -  
> AKA, the most hardcore magic we'll probably see in this fic, ft. Nina's Knowing, warmth/heat-based magic, + followup on some pre-existing plot threads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, it's here!

There is something  _ evil, _ lurking in the water.

It is known, to anyone who steps foot near it. Of course, that's rare, because nobody steps foot in water that cold if they can help it, but that doesn't save  _ everyone. _

No, there's something off about the ocean.

Perhaps it is the smooth back rising above the water, the one that tells something primal in their bones that this is no whale, no friendly gentle giant that will scare the sharks away.

Perhaps it's the dead bodies floating in the water, half-pulverized from some great beast slamming into them at tremendous speed and only eating what it can fit in its thin mouth (which is quite a bit).

Yes, it's probably the second one.

The water is warm- far too warm. It’s unsettling. The swimmers in their wetsuits leave the water, speak of a creature with tremendous eyes and a thresher-shark tail and dozens of  _ teeth _ , oh  _ god _ the  _ teeth- _

No, the water is not safe today. It probably will not be safe for quite some time.

* * *

To run with her is to hunt with a queen.

Like fire to a redwood forest, she has a duty to that which sustains her.

There has been no great predator here for hundreds of years, ever since invaders came and hunted the strongest of them for sport. And so, with the deer population ever climbing, Stratus inclines her massive head, and hunts.

Sometimes, Gabriel and Anna come with her.

It's usually Gabriel, though, not-quite-wolf paws hitting the ground, stalking slowly, his well-padded feet not giving anything away. Stratus seems to like having him there- he's good for making sure the prey can't run away, even if she’s bored out of her mind only running after white-tailed deer and if she’s lucky, the occasional beefalo they release in her new territory.

She voices her frustration, at times, which is when Gabriel reminds her that there hasn't been something of an adequate size in adequate numbers to justify feeding her with it in the United States or Canada in  _ thousands of years. _

When Stratus pointedly asks  _ why not, _ Gabriel replies sheepishly that humans essentially hunted all of the megafauna to extinction via use of tools. This very much catches Stratus’s attention, and the immense tyrannosaur asks him to explain exactly what kinds of great beasts once roamed these plains.

Gabriel barely notices the fact that he sleeps outside in his wolf-skin tonight. Maybe if he hadn't, he would have remembered to move his meager things out of sight of the rest of the team again.

But he doesn't, and that's why Major Hewitt is staring down at him now.

“It's not shameful to ask for help,” the man says, “If I had, maybe I never would have gone to the military to pay for college- Spinner and Daniels are both in the same boat. Gabriel, you  _ can't keep sleeping here, _ it's not healthy, but we can't help you until you  _ ask for it _ , otherwise it's kidnapping-”

Gabriel’s already hyperventilating. The only part of the whole thing he's heard is that Major Hewitt is  _ mad at him _ and-

Oh. Hugging. That's nice.

“I think Stratus would probably kill me if I took you away from her for too long,” Major Hewitt says, “But seriously, kid, any one of us would be happy to make some space at home for you.”

And now he’s crying. Ugly sobs, too. He clings tighter to Hewitt’s jacket, just wanting to hold  _ something _ if he can.

“I,” he begins, once he's calmed down enough to at least try to start talking, “I think- I'd like to not have to sleep here.”

Hewitt smiles, and ruffles Gabriel’s hair with a hand.

“Now, speaking of, have you finished high school yet?”

Gabriel has, but he does admit his final years weren't the best-quality education, which means he’s put on an online regimen (because there's no way to predict when he’s pulled out of school for an anomaly, not because he's never going to leave Hewitt’s converted guest room if he can help it). He’s close, though.

It's when he’s finally settled in properly and has met his boss’s preteen daughters that they get the call, frantic and fast, and set their eyes seaward, instinctual fear creeping into their bones.

* * *

Nina knows the others can feel the  _ wrongness _ in the water. It unsettles them. She can spot the glow of an anomaly near the crest of the waves, remembers how to see it from what she saw in Vancouver. Hard-won reactions scream at her to  _ run, _ to run as far and hard from this shore as her legs will carry her. She curls her hands into fists and vows to herself that she’s not going to run this time, not going to blubber and cry and  _ not do anything, _ not if she can help. There’s pity in Maria’s eyes, and Nina  _ hates _ it.

She carries her trauma in her chest like weights around her ankles, but it does not mean she cannot keep going. She can hold her head high and keep on walking, no matter how hard it tries to haul her backwards.

The water churns beneath her fingers, warm and sickening like the water in the Northwest had been. She knows, deep down, that this is likely just as salty as the sea should be, but can’t help but remember clear saltwater turned brackish and muddy, a serpent sliding from a sun.

She feels the wind off the sea ruffle her hair, smells ash and sickness and growing life, and  _ knows _ without seeing, what kind of time the creature in the sea she stands in comes from, if not the time in particular.

“We can’t tranquilize it,” she says, voice almost musical, even to her own ears, “It breathes air, same as we do, and we cannot kill it, it is  _ needed _ .”

Maybe it’s needed to eat something, or something as vital as to die at the right time, to fall to the seabed and be pressed into stone to be uncovered by clever fingers hundreds of millions of years later and a few years. The  _ knowing _ flickers at the back of Nina’s head in pulses, like the beating heart of time. Her vision fractures, and all she can see is light, burning, burning light, a thousand points of shattered glass spinning on, connecting forever.

Maria’s hand connects with hers, pulls Nina back from the great and terrible  _ knowing _ that’s wormed its way beneath her skin, and lets her  _ breathe _ , deep, gasping breaths as Maria sinks her hands into Nina’s hair, an anchor like there’s never been one before.

Nina smiles, and stands. New hands appear- Gabriel’s, around her forearm, eyes like agate turned to amber and citrine, shattered stone put back together again. She can feel the edge of his mind buzzing along hers, pulling the  _ knowing _ back so she can  _ see. _ Emma’s, strong and delicate, clever hands for clever work. Zachary’s, sympathetic in a way that screams to her that he understands. She looks into his eyes, now- the  _ knowing _ is there, but different, like he’s living ten seconds, ten minutes, ten hours ahead of the rest of them, and pulls him back in turn.

“Let’s not borrow trouble,” she says, “We have an apex predator to chase off, after all.”

There’s something like truth in their eyes. Emma stands, first.

_ First to stand and first to fall, _ something sings in the back of Nina’s head.

_ Not if I can help it, _ Nina screams in reply.

* * *

The boat isn’t very crowded. It’s really just them, looking for survivors. Anna sits on the edge, staring into the depths, clinging tightly to her lifejacket like it’s the only thing keeping her from plunging in.

“I don’t know how to swim,” she says to the first person who comes to her side. It’s Maria, Maria who’s swum since she could walk and long before, too.

“Once we’re away from here, I can teach you,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, “But I don’t think you’d want to learn out here.”

Anna sinks her fingers into the saltwater, feeling the too-warm ocean wrap around them and try to drag her down into itself. Maria’s fingers glide right on through, showing no fear.

“I’m not meant for the water,” she says, and Maria nods.

“Few are,” she says in reply, and stares into the ocean, like she’s daring the creature to show itself, to spring from the depths and into her vision, like she doesn’t have to risk life and limb and sink down, down, down to even catch a glimpse.

Oh. She doesn’t.

There’s a little minisub, a camera attached, and another attached to the bottom of the boat. The water isn’t clear, but it’s not filthy, either, and the camera’s connection is good, resisting the pull of the magnetism relatively well, at least to Anna’s eyes.

The first sighting is barely the tail. Anna thinks  _ thresher shark _ when she first sees it, but Thresher tails are long and ribbony, not barely fluked but long and strong and with the length at the  _ bottom _ of the tail. And they have top fins, too, not smooth backs with blubber underneath.

There’s firelight in Zachary’s eyes, a burning from within. Excitement, partially, but she thinks the right word is more along the lines of vindication.

“Ichthyosaur,” she says, when the creature comes back into frame.

“Thirty feet, toothed snout, no dorsal fin,” Emma and Gabriel continue in unison.

“Carnivore,” Maria adds offhandedly.

“Nevada,” Nina says, half spaced out. Everyone turns to her for a split second, staring incredulously. Nina shrugs.

“I keep trying to focus and I keep seeing Las Vegas casino signs,” she replies, “In a way that suggests something’s trying to tell me something, like how I saw the Columbian flag when I was near the Titanoboa, and I still feel maple leaves and sunlight from Stratus and Clementine.”

“Alright, a carnivorous early ichthyosaur from Nevada,” Anna continues, a grin starting to form on her face. Something beneath her skin is bubbling with giddiness, excitement. Her blood sings with trust and knowing, and the water feels more dangerous than ever.

Zachary whispers “Thalattoarchon,” like the name of a demon or an angel, something too big for the earth.

That’s right around when the ichthyosaur in question rams the boat with its massive snout, greedy teeth reaching out, wide eyes sparkling in lack of shame. There is something great and terrible about it that Anna has never seen in anything else before, she thinks when Maria rips her from the side of the boat, just in time to watch the beast’s teeth grip air.

She wonders if this is what it feels like, to stand against a dragon, nothing but soul and wit against great strength and terrible greed and wild, wild fire.

Anna does not fear fire, but she fears the ocean below her like nothing will ever be right again.

* * *

Gabriel knows there’s something wild and magical about sunlight over the ocean. He also knows he’s likely to be the only one of those here who’s likely to be able to harness it, and so, he reaches out.

The warmth that flickers over the surface of the ocean and is drawn into its depths- he draws it to him instead, lets it get his blood singing, lets it fly outwards like fire in the dark.

He hears the gasps and inclines his head like nothing else, and sinks his fingers into the water without a care in the world, searching desperately for something to get the Thalattoarchon to swim back, to leave this world that is so different from and yet so similar to its own, filled with easy prey and yet so  _ cold _ -

He sucks warmth into his fingers, out of the ocean’s depths, and feels a wail reverberate through his skull. The water on the edge of the boat freezes at his touch, ice crystals forming where his fingers skim across the droplets. He is warm, warm, warm, and the rest of the world is cold, cold, cold, like a crackling fire in the middle of the tundra.

He  _ burns. _

There is a hand on his, a grounding mechanism like Maria had been for Nina, but for him, it’s all their hands at once, on his own and on his shoulders, like a grounding wire for a lightning strike.

“It’s a warm-blooded reptile,” he says, eyes and hands and singing heart warm like the creature that swims below them, “Warm-blooded like the tyrannosaurs are, like a dolphin is. Turning the water cold, sucking the warmth from the sea- that will not save us.”

Five pairs of eyes lock with his own, and cast out to sea again.

“Do we have-”

“The largest aquatic skin I have is an alligator’s.”

There’s a deep, sinking, shifting feeling between the six of them, the kind of feeling that sings to the sun of fear and desperation. Gabriel lets the feeling lift him up as he reaches for the edge of the boat and gazes downwards.

“We could put chum in the water?” Nina suggests.

“That’ll only encourage it to stay on this side. We still have the mini-sub, right? Doesn’t it have a microphone?” Zachary asks. His eyes are alight with an idea that seems to be gaining favor.

“Better a lost mini-sub than another lost person,” Anna replies.

“Then we agree,” Emma says, standing, not a shake in her strong legs as she looks out to all of them, their shaken little team with fire in their eyes and rusted steel in their spines. Gabriel trusts her in that moment more than anything else, knows they were right to choose her to lead.

“Can we upload distress calls to the mini-sub remotely?” she asks, and the plan starts to fall into place in truth rather than in simple theory.

Gabriel feels outwards, wraps his mind around anything he can sense, pulls them back to him as if he has the tentacles of an octopus, suckers holding fast.

The creature  _ can’t _ suspect, they can’t let it.

They can’t afford for it to slip back through, before the anomaly closes for good. Not something this big, home free in the open ocean, the only thing keeping it close the warmth from its home sea.

* * *

“Do you all know how to deal with an anomaly on the coast with a large marine reptile?” is the first question Hewitt asks when Lester finally deigns to open the video call. Lester’s eyebrows rise dramatically.

“We dealt with a Mosasaurus rather early on?” he says hesitantly, than narrows his eyes, “Wait. The coast? Is it already out of a body of water that can be regulated?”

Hewitt’s weary nod tells Lester everything he needs to know.

“The best hope you have, then, is that something bigger or meaner decides to eat it. What exact sort of marine reptile are you dealing with?”

“Apparently a large ichthyosaur from the Middle Triassic called Thalattoarchon,” he replies. Lester hums.

“I take it you’ve found your team, then?”

“Two military women, a minor currently staying with me, a veterinarian, a paleontologist, a physicist, and a detective,” Hewitt replies, a smile on his face, “Although they’d all be slightly upset with me if I didn’t count the tyrannosaurs as part of the team, I think.”

“A minor?”

“Couldn’t convince him to leave, and he’s good at getting the tyrannosaurs to calm down,” the man hums.

Lester’s cool façade cracks for a second, the barest of smiles creeping through.

They’ll be just fine, alright.

Lester doesn’t realize until the man rolls back that there’s someone- or, rather, some _ thing _ \- else in the room. A chest covered in thin, fluffy almost-orange down feathers, rising and falling with each breath.

“Her name is Clementine, you said?” Lester finds himself asking. The tyrannosaur’s head jerks up, and she lets out a chirp, like a crocodile hatchling’s squeak.

Lester won’t let anyone  _ ever _ see the soft, fond smile that crosses his face.

* * *

They add the sounds manually. The mini-sub surfaces right next to the small boat. Gabriel’s arms are the longest, as the tallest member of the group (by a small margin, but he’s sixteen and nearly six feet tall, so…), and he fishes the sub from where it lays, bobbing in the waves. Nothing comes up to snap at his fingers, which he considers a win.

They trade what they use to record- audio from their phones of wailing in pain, the scent of blood from a thick hunk of chum on the edge of the minisub, a hook attached to the back. Gabriel makes sure to send it as close to the anomaly as he can make it before it splashes into the water, which churns at the rapid tail-stroke of the massive ichthyosaur as it turns towards the meat-scented disturbance.

The anomaly flickers dangerously, and Maria’s heart jumps all the way up into her throat. If the Thalattoarchon can’t get through in time, they’ll have to kill the creature. There’s no way they can humanely keep such a large predator- larger than even an orca- under control in captivity. They can’t calm it down verbally like they can with the tyrannosaur pair, it’s not small enough to keep it in a tank, and there’s no way to fence off the open ocean like it is with terrestrial environments-

The Thalattoarchon takes the bait, and surges through the anomaly. Maria’s heart sinks back down, stops hammering in her chest. She forces herself to breathe.

The anomaly pulses, spreads, and shuts.

The end of the ichthyosaur’s tail drifts up to the top of the waves. Maria pulls it from the water, palpitates it. There is one bone, the last in the tail-fluke. Maria grips the piece of tail tightly in her hand, and stares at the water before her, a buzzing along every inch of her body like numbness coming back to life.

“Let’s go home,” Emma hums, gripping Maria’s hand tightly. The younger woman smiles. It’s shaky, but there’s warmth to it, too.

“Yeah,” she says, looking back to shore, where Andrew stands, pacing, concerned for all of them, not just Zach, “Let’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter went through some rewrites because while Gabriel is my *favorite* of the oc's because he. is. baby., I love everyone else too and wanted to give Anna a bit more backstory, work in some of Andrew's insecurities, at least *mention* the fact that Nina's not over all of her issues... basically everyone's hurting.  
> Chapter Five is starting out pretty soft and sweet with hewitt family + gabe family bonding, though, so that's nice! i don't like writing angst but gabriel's definitely got the most angsty backstory i've written and anna and andrew are, put together, a pretty close second.  
> Also: Nina's *Knowing* is mostly centered around where-are-you-from-where-are-you-going, but she's also got points on Important and What Needs To Happen. Zachary shuts his foresight off most of the time because the longer he does, the further he can see into the future.  
> Also, feel free to drop a comment! i'm going to write this fic with or without external validation but it's always nice to hear other people's thoughts.


	4. the real false gharial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A child is by the river.  
> -  
> Or: amphibians were greater than frogs and toads and salamanders, once upon a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three day weekend here I come!

A child is by the river.

She didn’t notice him, when she did her original sweep of the injury victims from the crash. But no, there’s a little boy, staggering back, eyes wide in fear. He must have fallen in the creek.

She doesn’t notice the glowing sphere-ish of light wink out just by the river, doesn’t notice the sludge spilling from the bank like some great beast has slid into the water.

She does notice the blood, though, and races forwards to grip his hand, to haul him back towards the ambulance where he can be treated.

She doesn’t quite make it in time.

He’s not dead, that much is for sure, but  _ something _ lunges from the water, a long snout full of sharp teeth and a long, muscular shape that leaves slime across the bank.

He’s never going to be able to walk on his own feet again. Children bounce back quickly, but she’ll never unsee…  _ that. _

She calls the police about it, sobbing, when she sees the creature in the creek again days later. The operator  _ would _ scoff, but remembers a detective from Boston who’d asked for them to pass things along if they heard anything strange.

They remember her from a particularly tough case, specifically, and they remember how frantic she was, when she’d asked for this one favor- anything odd relating to monsters or wild animals.

A gharial in _Hartford_ seems just about right to call her for.

* * *

And that is how seven members of the Boston ARC team end up together in an SUV on a two hour drive to go take a look at a child-maiming carnivore from prehistoric times. Seven, because David Hewitt refused to get in the car, instead holing up in his office and calling them periodically on the way there.

Originally, the setup goes: Maria driving, Emma riding shotgun, Andrew and Nina in the back, Anna on one window, Zach on the other, and Gabriel in the middle, despite the fact that he needs the most space of any of them, for reasons alternative to his height.

This is brought up when they stop halfway through the drive so Gabriel can shudder his way through a panic attack  _ properly,  _ and the mutual six-way decision is made to reorder the seating arrangement around it. The transition goes like this: Emma switches with Maria who switches with Andrew who switches with Gabriel, leaving Andrew in the middle, Gabriel in shotgun, Maria in the back with Nina, who she chats with the rest of the drive, and Emma driving the whole car like an exasperated parent.

“I’m fine,” Gabriel growls when they all finally tumble out of the car, to a variety of raised eyebrows. Maria pops the trunk, while Nina prepares the tranquilizer darts.

“I can go talk to the kid who got attacked,” Emma says, “I’ll take Gabriel with me,  _ if _ he can check his attitude at the door.”

“Zach and I can go talk to the schoolteacher,” Andrew hums.

“Nina, Anna and I will check the creek where the attack happened,” Maria says, to nods from the volunteered pair.

“You three take the tranquilizer darts. Gabriel, can you keep the kid calm?” There’s a nod, and Emma continues, “Zach, Andrew, make sure to stress that the animal she saw was probably an escaped gharial or false gharial, no matter what the kid says otherwise.”

And the kid does say otherwise- says that the creature was slimy, mentions a glowing shattered-glass light above the river-

Gabriel’s voice is  _ soothing _ in a strange way that it shouldn’t be. Emma stares, watches as the eyes glow and the boy calms, reaching out for Gabriel’s hand on instinct.

The Moondancer keeps himself out of reach. As they head down in the elevator, Emma bumps his shoulder, quiet contact that says everything.

“Hey. You did well.”

Gabriel’s grin is a shining thing, and his nervous-happy laugh is warm.

* * *

Zach and Andrew are not having even half of the same luck. Mary-Anne is skittish, with wide eyes behind her glasses, and she regards them with distrust when they approach her door. Zach’s wide smile disarms even the most frightened of folk, however, and Mary-Anne Taylor is no different. Zach introduces himself as part of a special division similar to Animal Control, specializing in large exotics, which gets a nervous laugh from the woman, but a relieved sag of her shoulders.

She agrees it’s probably a gharial. There’s some discussion of  _ what kind of person releases a gharial into the wild, seriously, how completely and utterly self-assured do you have to be- _

Zach slips in the fact that gharials primarily eat fish and this creature was likely just as startled as they were.

“I’m not completely convinced it wasn’t a gar-”

“I’m not going to let a gar take the fall for some other creature’s appetite again,” Zach cuts in, panicked, “The Alligator Gar is already somewhere between threatened, endangered, and extinct essentially anywhere it once lived. No, this is a crocodilian’s work, most likely a gharial or false gharial. You said it was big, with short, stubby legs and a paddle-tail, yeah?”

“And there was all this  _ slime- _ well, it wasn’t everywhere, but it was on Kenny’s hand where he pushed the thing off of him-” Mary-Anne continues, and Zach gives Andrew a  _ look, _ one which Andrew very much does not understand but is willing to play along with for the sake of keeping his husband together enough to make the final connections.

They walk from the door.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Zach asks. Andrew shakes his head.

“Probably not. I’m not a telepath, that’s the kid’s job,” he jokes. Zach purses his lips and shakes his head, and Andrew’s smile falls.

“Let’s go join the girls at the creek, huh? Maybe we can figure out what’s lurking in the depths there? Figure out how to deal with it?”

His phone buzzes in his pocket. There’s a text, from Emma.

_ Anomaly closed. Calling a transport now. _

Andrew grits his teeth in frustration, and watches Zach do the same.

“Let’s figure out what to do with a massive amphibian from the Permian that looks like a crocodilian,” he says with a sigh.

* * *

“I hate being right,” says Zach when he arrives, staring down a massive amphibian that looks for all the world like a false gharial, right down to the size.

Except for the lack of scales. That’s important.

“So, what is this thing?” Maria asks, hopped up on a log at the point where it’s easier for her to run and make a break for it than the amphibian.

“It’s definitely a temnospondyl,” he says, “a Prionosuchus, I think. They can get much bigger than this.”

Nina gives him a betrayed look.

“Kenny said there was only one,” Gabriel hums, also staring down at the massive amphibian, “It’s an amphibian though, right? Aren’t we going to need a pretty significant water-based enclosure for this thing?”

“David says he’s bought a very large wading pool for the moment,” Emma begins, and Anna lets out a high-pitched nervous laugh.

“We’re putting a crocodile in a kiddie pool.”

“It’s  _ not _ a crocodile,” Zach growls, “A crocodile would be uncomfortable on dry land, and would need a body of water, but it wouldn’t be as  _ dangerous _ for it to go without-”

“Isn’t it strange that the crocodilian body plan pops up so often in natural history, though?” Gabriel postures, and receives several glares for his efforts.

“Save that for your thesis,” Andrew snorts, and that’s that.

The temnospondyl starts to make a break for it, and is cut off by a log to that side of the stream.

“You know, that thing’s bigger than the biggest alligator I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Maria hums, a whine on the edge of her breath. Zach rolls his eyes, and rolls up his sleeves.

“Listen, we’re going to have to keep this trapped in here until the containment vehicle arrives, which is going to be about two hours, now,” Emma says, “Let’s figure out what we don’t want the amphibian- temnospondyl?”

“Prionosuchus. I’m assuming.”

“What we don’t want the Prionosuchus doing before we figure out where we want it to be staying. Like leaving the area, the thing it is currently attempting to do.”

Gabriel slides down into the creek. At some point during the day, he’s switched running shoes out for thick boots and pulled on fishing waders, which actually sounds like a pretty good idea. He grabs the temnospondyl around the mouth with his bare hands, and if it wasn’t for the fact that practically any species with a strong enough bite force has a comparatively miniscule opening force, Zach would be reminded just how  _ strong _ the kid is.

“I’m just going to sit here for a little while until this thing calms down!” the kid hollers from where he sits in the creek. Zach shrugs his shoulders. There’s a yelp, and Nina falls in properly, earning a giggle instead of a scream now that the shape-shifter has the amphibian under control.

* * *

“So, what time period is this thing from?” he asks, making sure not to grip the Prionosuchus too tightly- he doesn’t want to crush the amphibian’s snout, after all- and looks up towards the rest of the team where they’re perched on the riverbank, “Carboniferous, Permian, or Early Mesozoic?”

There’s a flash of something strange in the Professor’s eyes, something almost like recognition, and he smiles the smile almost exclusively reserved for Anna when she’s done something particularly spectacular.

“A Prionosuchus would be from the Early Permian, Gabriel,” he says, before his posture shifts, and he goes into lecture mode.

Gabriel stifles a warm laugh, and settles his now-muddy back against the opposite riverbank. The temnospondyl, growing rather cold in the frigid water, despite the relative warmth of the air. Gabriel feels the wind being knocked out of him when a heavy foreleg hits him in the gut, and frantically repositions the amphibian so his hands remain around its long snout. Nina quickly slides to his other side, propping up the rest of the amphibian above the water.

There’s something about the amphibian, something that  _ ticks _ in the back of his head, like a memory that’s simply  _ more _ than any other.

“If you were a crocodilian,” he says, voice barely above a whisper and filled with something wild and ancient, “I could speak with you, and I would not have to hold you for fear of what you’d do if I did not.”

The amphibian doesn’t answer, for it cannot, but a large dark eye much like a salamander’s focuses on Gabriel’s face. He remembers, for a moment, that this is an apex predator, used to the same kind of killing that his beloved gators know so well.

_ You are no wild thing, _ he can imagine the temnospondyl saying,  _ You are a broken thing, dragged down, tamed against your will. You were wild once, not anymore. Perhaps, again. _

There’s a sound, almost like a chirp- strange from a creature as large as the temnospondyl- as the immense amphibian settles just a little bit. Gabriel knocks shoulders with Nina, who resists the urge to run her hands through her hair, and instead digs her fingers into the back of the temnospondyl- not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to ground her. He can feel her as she feels  _ Brazil _ and  _ put together _ spark along the back of her head, and he understands what her knowing is trying to tell her.

She reaches back out across the feeler to tell him. Her voice in her head is singing, the high cry of some kind of old ballad, one that pulses through the ages.

She’s the first of them to reach out, really. She’s the first, now, that becomes something approximating  _ pack. _

* * *

The temnospondyl is loaded into the truck, all fifteen and a half feet of it, snapping teeth and pitch-dark eyes. Anna shifts skins to run and run alongside the truck for as long as she can manage, kicking up dust along the way. Her ears swing in the wind, and everything reeks of blood and death.

One of them, more than others.

The not-quite-wolf with the reverse countershaded pelt stalks beside her, massive paws with wicked claws splayed across the earth. Golden eyes scan her comparatively tiny bloodhound form. The wolf’s gait switches, short pacing movements replaced with lengthening strides, the loping movement of a carnivore looking to conserve their energy. Anna whines, and the wolf slows.

_ “I do not like this place,” _ he says, and she cannot argue. These woods, for her, are threaded in such a way that it tugs on her memory.

She wonders if his telepathy and Nina’s  _ knowing _ whisper anything about  _ her _ secrets, about how she’s fought and what she’s ignored and the visceral pain that rolls beneath her skin when she sees red eyes and wolf paws.

There’s something in the way Gabriel’s eyes flicked at that thought, something like empathy and understanding from a shared experience. Bile begins to rise in Anna’s throat.

_ “You're going to be okay,” _ he says, voice soft,  _ “Believe me on that.” _

* * *

Emma aches, from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head. Maybe it's the air here, reminding her of blood and failure. Maybe it's the look in Kenny’s eyes, maybe it's the way the woods seem to whisper her name with the faces of all of her dead, but Emma is  _ tired _ , a low, dull ache that reverberates through her skin.

She smiles, instead, and turns back to the rest of her team, who thinks she doesn’t notice. To Maria, who shuffles uncomfortably when anyone mentions family, who can’t mention her own, to Anna, who hides the scarring on her side well in human form but can’t in her bloodhound-shape, to Andrew, who stumbles over his own words because by this point, even after well over a decade, he’s still instinctively prepared to be screamed at, to Nina, who still can’t quite handle the sight of an open anomaly but tries  _ so hard _ anyways, to Gabriel, who shudders at the slightest of wrong noises in a way that’s achingly familiar to Emma, to Zach, who tries his best to accommodate despite the tiredness that eats away at him.

They’re  _ her _ team, and they hurt just like she does. Emma thinks that might be what draws them to this kind of work- to  _ help _ people, without asking thanks in return, to use the skills they’ve won out of sheer stubbornness and spite to save lives instead of taking them.

She knows that’s why Hewitt and Spinner and Daniels are here, to say the least.

_ ‘We climb mountains together,’ _ she thinks,  _ ‘out of nothing but willpower and sheer dumb luck.’ _

Emma takes a look at the rest of the team, sleeping over each other. Nina and Maria are curled against each other in the back, Andrew shoots her a goofy smile from the rearview mirror. Anna slumps forwards, Gabriel’s ridiculously long arms fall over the back of his seat, and Zach’s face is pressed against the window.

Emma doesn’t know  _ how _ they’ve tired themselves out so quickly, but it makes a fond smile cross her face.

They make it back to the base in one piece, thankfully. She resists the urge for her smile to grow when Maria and David carefully pull Anna from the car, making sure not to wake her up. Gabriel groans and shifts, meaning that they have to convince at least three hundred pounds of wolf to move instead a hundred and seventy or so pounds of human.

“I think we need to convince everyone to get onto a proper sleep schedule,” David says, quiet enough to insure he doesn’t wake Anna, “Though I fear we may ruin it, later.”

Emma shrugs.

“They’re sweet like this,” she replies, “And I don’t mind, not much. They got the job done, they can take a nap on the way back.”

David’s smile is a soft thing, a reminder he’s got two girls of his own.

“I spoke to Lester,” he says, and Emma has to wrack her brain for who that  _ is _ , because David doesn’t tell them much about the bureaucracy going on outside of this place, but it clicks in the incline of the man’s head and the way he says the name.

“British team?” she asks, to a nod.

“They’ll be able to send over the schematics within the next few weeks, for a detector. We might actually be able to get mildly ahead of these things, rather than waiting for them to hurt someone.”

His eyes burn when they flicker over to the temnospondyl being loaded into their growing menagerie of three, and Emma is reminded of exactly what type of parent the man is.

“Best of luck,” she says, and heads over to the garage.

It’s time to go home.

Emma is  _ tired. _

* * *

Lester stares at the photo of the crocodile-looking thing, and debates the urge to call Professor Cutter in so the insufferable man can stare at it with him. It would serve him right, to be so gobsmacked by what nature can pull out of a tophat.

“You’re saying that’s an  _ amphibian? _ ” he asks, and hears the now familiar tired sigh from the other end of the line.

“Yeah, a temnospondyl from the Permian, or so Professor Mason- the paleontologist, not the physicist- says. Apparently, the opening strength of the jaw is next to nil, which is… mildly comforting, I must say.”

Lester could bet on  _ that. _ Such a large creature having such an easy way to neutralize it (well, relatively easy) is a relief.

“I hear you’re building quite a menagerie,” he hums, to a laugh.

“Yes, we are. Clementine stays with me, Gabriel, and the girls, but she and Stratus have become sort of… mascots… for the team. We’ve been reminded several times now to never leave the new temnospondyl without water- did you know the Masons have been calling it  _ Spatula, _ of all things-”

Lester can’t quite hide his snort of surprise with a cough.

“It doesn’t even look like a spatula! And then they have the  _ gall _ to claim it’s after the scientific name of the alligator gar, when it doesn’t look like an alligator gar either-”

Lester lets him rant for a little while, before he notices a familiar number on the other line.

“I believe we’ll have to cut this short. You’ll receive the detector schematics within the hour. You do recall what you owe me, yes?”

“Absolutely. Thank you so much, Lester.”

Good. At least  _ someone’s _ appreciative of his help. Lester glares at Cutter to make his point clearer. The man, like always, doesn't take the hint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS is the Brazilian species that I mentioned on Tumblr (i'm youcannotbesirius on tumblr, if you're not here from over there- I've posted some art for this fic if y'all like my creature designs!)  
> anyways i love this fic and everything about writing it! the research is SO FUN. i have a little random generator that spits out time periods for me, and i'm debating letting it throw me the next one or going with an angsty emma-centric chapter, but i'm probably going to go with random and save angsty emma-centric for sometime down the line.


	5. rain on down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> team bonding, a working detector, and a lot of animals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am... so tired...

They don’t have another serious emergency that pulls them away for another two weeks or so (if you can call the temnospondyl an emergency), with only one other anomaly that turns out to be so early in Earth’s history that all they have to do is contain the poisonous gas that leaks from it before it destabilizes in about thirty minutes. And so, the familiar sound of a yelp and the bright flash of lightning wakes him quicker than they might have otherwise.

Zoe and Morgan drag him out of bed somewhere around two o’clock in the morning. The thunder’s boom practically shakes the house. Zoe is wild-eyed and frightened, and both rush to hide in the living room, of all things, unlike gathering together in Morgan’s room like they usually do.

David realizes why when he walks into a wall of fur when attempting to reach the couch. One golden eye slides open, and the wolf gives him a dour look, before standing and stretching, yawn showing immense white teeth.

“Hey look who showed up, Dad, it’s the Big Bad Wolf!” Zoe laughs. Gabriel snorts.

_ “I don’t think I’m bad, _ ” he says,  _ “I sure am big, though. And I’m pretty sure I’m a wolf, but sixty-seven is still three points short of a passing grade.” _

Morgan’s on the couch, drinking hot water to stave off the chill the thunderstorm’s brought forth. Zoe clambers on top of the massive wolf, digging her fingers into his fur.

_ “If you don’t get off of my back, I’m going to head right out that door and we’re both going to get soaked,” _ he threatens, but there’s no truth to it. He stays slumped on the floor, eyes closed again, ears laid back passively.

“Alright. Do we think we’re going back to sleep, or are we going to stay up until the thunderstorm passes?” he asks. Gabriel yawns again, tucking his thick-furred tail over his snout.

_ “ _ I  _ can go back to sleep just fine, it’s these two who’re freaked out. _ ”

“You mean Zoe,” Morgan cuts in. Gabriel shakes his massive canine head, and David wonders when, exactly, this became his life.

_ “No, I mean both of you. You don’t like thunderstorms either. I can tell. Moondancer, remember? _ ”

Morgan huffs, and Zoe laughs, before hopping up onto the couch. Gabriel rolls over and tries to wedge himself under the coffee table.

“So, what are  _ you _ scared of, then?” Morgan asks, and Gabriel freezes, before turning his head towards them as best he can manage, dead serious.

_ “Werewolves.” _

David can see the wheels turning in Morgan’s head, and chooses then to very loudly start making food, catching everyone’s attention. He can hear the thump-thump of a wagging tail, and can see the lone teenager of the group wriggle out from under the table, shifting as he stands.

“Ow,” Gabriel says exaggeratedly, cracking his back.

There’s a buzzing from his phone. It’s Andrew, and one of the engineering or computer science (David can never remember which is which) professionals he’s wrangled to help set up their version of the detector.

_ “We have a live alert,” _ he says,  _ “We’ve already dispatched people to the anomaly to make sure nothing’s gotten through, I just thought-” _

“I’d want to know. You thought right. Thank you, Andrew,” David hums, “And go home, get some sleep.”

_ “Not in this weather, sir!” _ Andrew replies jokingly, before becoming far more serious,  _ “Really, though- Emma and I are supervising. You’re home alone with the kids, right?” _

“If you count Gabriel, then yes. We’re all up.”

_ “Actually, could you send him over? Stratus is throwing a hissy fit, and Clementine’s here tonight, so the hissy fit is halfway for her and-” _

“I’m pretty sure he heard you over the phone, he’s getting ready right now.”

_ “Okay, okay. Uh- I think Maria’s on her way, she can stop by yours?” _

“Yeah, sure.”

* * *

_ “I hate rain.” _

“I figured that much,” Gabriel says, sinking his fingers into the white-speckled feathers on Stratus’s side. The Daspletosaurus stares out the window in the converted garage morosely. Clementine is sound asleep, curled up in an oversized crate stuffed with a dog bed in the corner. Stratus rocks back on her legs and stands, carrying Gabriel with her.

_ “I would normally be out on a hunt, now,” _ she says,  _ “Rainfall obscures scent, but we can hunt just as well by sight. I can’t- I can’t be cooped up like this.” _

Gabriel slides his eyes over to the baby tyrannosaur in the corner, and the near-grown one staring at the barely lightened sky outside.

“I spoil you, don’t I? C’mon, let’s go for a run,” he says, and starts the series of unlocking gates to let Stratus out of her pen and into the rain.

He sinks down into his own wolf-skin, and follows her. The rain comes down heavy, and he’s soaked to the bone in seconds, but Stratus, shaking out her feathers and fluffing them up dramatically, seems happy enough, so it’s alright.

She starts to run. Gabriel stays at her heels, and scouts ahead, checking for unsteady ground. They don’t quite run- the earth’s too wet for that- but they do move, at the very least. Stratus shakes her massive head, seemingly to clear it, and begins to head back.

When they make it back, Gabriel’s eyes are already drooping.

He falls asleep soaking wet in his human skin, clinging to Stratus’s feathers.

He doesn’t wake up until the storm is over.

* * *

“Once again, I'm mystified by how quickly this was put together,” Andrew hums at David, who wipes his bleary eyes with a shrug.

“It was already put together, we just kicked out whoever was working here because we had a tyrannosaur and they didn't,” David replies, “Speaking of, I heard she was out earlier today?”

“Her and the kid. Came back soaked from the rain. Kid’s got the beginnings of something respiratory but Stratus is fine.”

David’s eyebrows rise, and he fights off the instant concern. It must still be visible, though, because-

“He's fine, he’ll bounce back quick, he's just cold.”

The detector begins to blare. David’s eyebrows, post settling back to their standard position, jump up again.

“We sure that’s not a false alarm?”

Their new detector apparently states the new anomaly isn’t far away- still in the general south-of-Lynfield area where they’ve set up (which is a grating commute, of course, but they’ve got a pair of tyrannosaurs, it’s not like they could have set up any  _ closer _ to Boston). In fact, it’s almost frighteningly close, practically within their own space.

“Anna, you, Nina, and Gabriel stay here,” David orders, “Andrew? Go lie down. Emma-”

“On it, sir,” the former detective says, snagging her coat, “I’ll take Maria and Zachary, and a couple of the Special Forces soldiers.”

“Are we sure we don’t want to take more people? Usually we’re at least six to a mission,” Anna says. David shakes his head.

“They’re taking backup, and until they say otherwise, the tyrannosaurs are always going to be our highest priority as the largest and most dangerous animals we are responsible for. And they’re not going to be very far away, either- if they need more backup, all they have to do is shout.”

Speaking of  _ shout, _ a deep, irritated rumble sounds throughout the building. David hurries towards the viewing area for the Daspletosaurus poor-weather-pen, watching as the strikingly colored tyrannosaur groggily watches back.

Stratus snorts, and settles back down. Clementine chirps hungrily from the corner.

“Don’t you  _ dare _ start sighing again,” says Nina, listening to Stratus’s lungs (she’s been relying primarily on her  _ knowing _ to determine what’s healthy and what’s not for a tyrannosaur of her age bracket) while Gabriel clings to the Daspletosaurus’s back.

Just to be contrary, David sighs extra loudly.

“I spoil both of you,” he says to the tyrannosaurs. Clementine wiggles excitedly, golden eyes bright with anticipation. Wisely, both Gabriel and Nina move from the pen itself to the viewing area as the tyrannosaurs are led into the feeding zone. Well, Stratus is. Clementine, because she’s spoiled rotten, is a hand-fed brat.

* * *

“So, what do you think is going to find its way through?” Maria asks, cracking her back dramatically. Emma shrugs her shoulders.

“I wouldn’t know. I think we’re all talking with the British team on how to figure out when any individual anomaly links to, but it’s still guesswork.”

“I’m thinking of getting a custom Magic 8 Ball,” Maria says. Emma turns to stare at her, eyebrows nearly in her hairline. Maria raises her hands.

“Hey, you’re the one that said it was basically guesswork, and there’s what, seventeen geologic periods that are after the evolution of complex life? If you count sectional periods like the Miocene as their own separate periods, of course. There’s a one-in-twenty or so chance of it actually being right.”

Emma narrows her eyes.

“Since when do you learn about this stuff?”

“Since I joined a team where we fight dinosaurs on the regular, and we babysit the possible ancestor to the T-Rex in our off-hours. Since when are you the kind of person who doesn’t take the time to learn about this?”

“Because it’s not  _ my _ job to study these things,” Emma says, “It’s my job to order  _ your _ ass around and keep the nerds alive.”

Maria’s laugh escapes as something a little left of a bark.

* * *

One of the newer Special Forces personnel is a young soldier by the name of Maxie. They’re friendly, and glad for the space to breathe. Zach likes talking to them. Maxie seems to have their fingers on the pulse of everyone here. Zach’s not sure if it’s the telepathy- Maxie’s of the sort that’s been a low-level telepath for as long as they can remember, but never got the “kick” of an average telepath when they got older- or just how friendly they are, but it’s definitely  _ something. _

Because Maxie can chatter about team gossip for  _ hours _ .

It’s when the soldier goes silent that Zach figures that something must be very, very wrong here. He can hear the distinctive thrum of an anomaly up close in the air (something he’d not really gotten to hear until the poison gas anomaly from a while back). It pulses with light and life, and Zach thinks he might just cry at the floating shattered glass, reflecting a thousand different futures and four and a half thousand-million years.

He doesn’t need Nina’s  _ knowing _ to tell him that there’s something alive on the other side of this one. He feels it in his bones, his own precognition wrapping around the anomaly like an old friend.

An old friend that, practically just to spite him, spits out a long-necked camel, of all things. And a toothed bird that looks  _ very _ out of place, and very bedraggled. Come to think of it, the camel looks like it’s soaked to the bone and exhausted, too.

Zach’s mind starts spinning. A long-necked camel-looking thing could theoretically exist any time between the Miocene and the Holocene, but combined with the truly massive toothy-beaked bird that couldn’t be anything but a  _ Pelagornis- _

_ Aepycamelus, _ probably, suggesting some time in the Miocene epoch. Huh. Zach’s been wondering when an anomaly to a more recent time would open, it seems like they’ve been going further and further back in time and nothing else ever since they’ve started.

Maxie raises their gun and fires a tranq into the camel, which takes some time to fall but does so eventually. When Zach turns, the soldier shrugs.

“I figured the standard stuff we’ve used for camels before would be fine. That was one, right?”

There’s concern in Maxie’s voice, edging on panic.

“Yes, it was, and thank you. Now, I trust you know what to do from here? I’m not exactly going to be of much use.”

They shrug their shoulders and radio for assistance. Zach notes with amusement that his nickname is apparently “Bone Boy”.

He notes with even  _ greater _ amusement that Emma’s nickname is  _ Fuzz. _

That is, of course, until the amusement leaves as abruptly as two borophagines-  _ Epicyon, _ he thinks, are the likely culprits for whatever species this pair happens to be, with their muscular lion-shaped heads- exit the anomaly. The bone-crusher dogs snarl, fear and stubbornness flashing in their dark eyes.

The Pelagornis dives back through the anomaly, buffeted by an unseen wind. The borophagines set their eyes on the camel.

Maxie lets out a horrified shout as one of the two flies past them in a burst of speed, slamming into the camel in a flurry of dull claws and bone-crunching teeth.

* * *

Maria hears Maxie’s low-pitched yelp and the snarling of dogs, and curses under her breath.

Maria  _ likes _ Maxie. They’re friendly, and helpful, and they were  _ so relieved _ to know they weren’t the only out person at the ARC. Outside of the nerd squad and the boss, they might be one of her only friends here, and she’s keen on keeping them  _ alive. _

And then Maria remembers that Maxie’s with Bone Boy, and starts running faster. She skids over a dip in the land, obscured by trees taller than those on the other side of the ridge, and nearly trips and falls, but she’s fast enough to fire a dart into one of the lion-dogs. There’s two, at the moment, but a third and fourth are clearly on their way out, along with-

“Is that a fucking  _ Mastodon? _ ” Zach yelps, and Maria blinks. She’d just thought it was the weirdest-looking elephant she’d ever seen, but now that she’s done her research (mostly comprised of one several hour wikipedia binge, but she’ll never tell anyone else on the team that), she can see the difference- the more horizontal trunk positioning, the squatter body instead of the upright posture of an elephant or a mammoth-

“That’s got to be a very specific timeframe,” she says, eyes on the very dead long-necked camel, and Zach looks at her, surprised, before Maria jolts and fires a tranquilizer into the nearest giant lion-dog.

This only serves to rile up the Mastodon, unfortunately, which raises its trunk and levels its tusks at her. Maria jolts, and gets as far out of the way as she can, hissing at Maxie and Zach and Emma to  _ get back, damnit _ -

_ “Captain Spinner?” _

“Sir, we need backup here, and we need it ten minutes ago. There are four- no, five, that’s another one- five, damnit, what the hell are these things-”   
Zach grabs the radio while Maria stumbles over what the hell the lion-dog things are.

“Five  _ Epicyon, _ three tranquilized. They’re social, so they’re not going to go escape on us, but the bigger problem is the damned  _ Mastodon. _ Send who you can, but if you can swing it, we need some  _ big _ help, if you know what I mean.”

Maria likes the way this man thinks. She shoots Zach a wild grin as she tosses Maxie more tranquilizer, the soldier eyeing up the Mastodon with trepidation in their eyes.

“Are we sure these are going to go through that fur coat of his?” they ask, staring wide-eyed at the thing.

“Absolutely no idea. If you’re concerned, drug the dogs. Hopefully, Big Help is on her way.”

Maxie finally takes note of what she’s saying, and narrows their eyes.

“We’re nicknaming the-”

“Zip it, get to taking these things out, soldier kid,” she barks, and Maxie  _ laughs, _ lining up their shots with ease now that their hands don’t shake. A few more darts, and a jump behind the trees later, and all that’s left is the Mastodon, which is getting progressively more and more upset as time goes by. Maria tightens her hands around her gun.

There’s a bizarre noise, like the yipping of a zebra, and three almost-horses race through the anomaly, soaked to the bone. The mastodon tosses its head, connecting with one of the horses, which lets out an almighty scream.

“Don’t get anywhere near that thing, you hear me?” she tells Maxie, who nods their head.

“Wasn’t planning on it!” they whisper-hiss back, already making their way into the treetops. Maria straps her gun to her side and boosts Zach up, followed by Emma, who lets out an indignant noise but otherwise doesn’t kick up much of a fuss.

The ground is just starting to dry out, Maria notes. There’s a shaking to the earth, just a little bit of it, if she’s going to be honest with herself, but it’s probably nothing. The Mastodon seems upset about something or another, stomping its massive pillars of legs on the ground, shaking it more than the great and terrible noise that Maria can just barely hear, the one that’s stuck on the edges of her memory, could ever manage. Beside her, on one of the lower branches, sits Maxie, face gone ashy with fear.

Above her, feet almost in Maria’s face, is the detective, who’s grin is starting to become frightening. Emma moves to the trunk of the tree to stand taller, to see further. Zachary clearly decides to follow her example, standing up on shaky legs and almost clutching the trunk and quietly praying that he won’t fall. And, because gravity adores being contrary, that means that Zach abruptly takes said fall, spilling out from the tree and onto the ground.

The Mastodon’s ears move. The Mastodon snorts. And, to Maria’s horror, the Mastodon turns towards the paleontologist, eyes narrowed and whole body angry.

* * *

This is it. He’s going to die. He’s going to be trampled to death by a Mastodon, and Zachary Mason has accepted this as fact.

That is, until the rumble rattles his ribs, and the jelly in his eyes, and Zach’s not sure if it’s the rush of emotion or the fact that the roar literally shakes his tears out that’s caused him to start crying in relief, but he honestly doesn’t care.

The true roar is an immense thing. It reminds him vaguely of an alligator bellow, a rattling noise that settles deep in the listener’s chest. It jumps up in pitch at the last moment, like a shout turning into a scream, and Zachary’s only real thought is that a movie theatre could  _ never _ have done this justice. He loves Jurassic Park with an open heart, but  _ this _ is his tyrannosaur, though not quite a Rex- red-eyed and colorfully bedecked, with a thick coat of feathers that hides most of her tiny little baby arms that can still do a  _ frightening _ amount of damage.

Her throat swells with air, scales below her throat bulging like an alligator’s, and she lets it out in a rush.

_ ‘Cassowaries never forgot they were dinosaurs, once,’ _ Zachary thinks, ‘ _ And they never forgot they were kin with  _ this _ dinosaur in particular.’ _

The frightful tyrant stakes her claim and stands her ground.

The Mastodon runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some extra screentime for The Gals, and formal introduction of nicknames (yes, Big Help will stick)!


	6. the amplification of the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a crown of feathers for a queen of the skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so tired

The talons are like fish-hooks for sharks. The eyes half-glow in recognition, and the feathers behind the head flare like a harpy’s, a crown of feathers for a queen of the skies.

The crown jewel of his collection, truly. The single biggest eagle he’s ever seen in his entire life, a bird frightfully intelligent, which he has no claim to. The eagle could probably kill him with ease- a single wallop to the skull from eight feet of wing would probably do it in a little under an instant.

He doesn’t know quite what she is, only that the glowing light in his locked-off study with the glass door has produced her, and might contain more of these fantastic beasts.

There’s a massive snarl from the study, and the door splinters. He tries to calm her, the majesty in his living room, but inclines his head towards the door and opens a window, just in case.

She leans down, eyes full of hatred and anger at her capture, and bites off the jesses he’s tied to her legs. He doesn’t have time to react before the door finally busts.

His last thought is that if he dies at this creature’s paws, even without a fight, he’ll die a happy man.

For this is a king among beasts, the kind of creature that myths and legends are written about, over seven hundred pounds of muscle and royalty, with a killer’s mind set on the one duty it has always been good for.

He accepts his fate readily, and bows his head.

A creature native and with right to stay takes those rights readily, eyes level and magnificent.

_ This _ is a  _ king. _

* * *

The detector goes off in a whirl of sound that sends their resident staff with enhanced senses to the ground. The techies scramble to lower the volume all at once, making it more difficult for themselves in the process. With a roll of her eyes, Nina steps in, covering Clementine’s with one hand while she shuts the volume off with the other.

“Fix it later. Get us coordinates  _ now. _ ”

Those coordinates happen to be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which results in minor grumbling from the Masons, both of whom are Brandeis loyalists and think that Harvard is  _ exceedingly _ overrated, there’s also a level of fear which practically screams worry for personal friends.

By the time they get there, a creature has already struck, bloody paw-prints leaving a house through a massive open window, all the way down the street until the blood dries and they’re no longer visible. Gabriel can see at least a half-dozen different kinds of prints through the blood- he can recognize at least a few.

The most concerning, of course, are the three separate individual sets that suggest some kind of large cat- bigger than any he’s ever seen, at least. But Gabriel can, with some minor help from Nina, figure out what the rest of them are.

At least one set- the most recent- is a fox’s prints, while another is clearly oversized coyote. There are four or five sets of one  _ very _ distinctive pair of paws- an oversized (but only slightly) wolf’s print.

“Dire wolf,” he says. One of the soldiers flinches visibly, and stares at him, eyes wide. Nina snorts.

“Don’t worry, you  _ have _ been reading too much into Game of Thrones. Dire wolves are smaller than Epicyon- they’re only barely bigger than MacKenzie Valley Wolves, and believe me, while wolves can be difficult to deal with, they don’t like bothering humans as much as you might think. They probably scattered into the woods at the first chance they had, especially if they were dealing with bigger carnivores like these prints suggest.”

“Like what?” Maxie asks, “You said there’s six types of prints here. That’s one larger carnivore and the dire wolves, and clearly two other canids-”

“Coyote- there’s only one, though, and it might not be native to the area. And then a red fox’s,” Nina says, “But the most  _ concerning _ of the prints are the fuck-off huge cat trio. One ridiculously large animal- six hundred pounds, at least. Two slightly smaller.”

“If those are dire wolves, that means American Lion.”

Zach waves from past the caution tape, looking green around the gills.

“Yeah. Alright, American Lions are genus  _ Panthera, _ they shouldn’t have so many morphological differences that we can’t use ketamine. Dire Wolves are still genus  _ Canis, _ anything we have for dogs will work for them too. Actually-”

“This is Late Pleistocene, anything that comes through the anomaly will be exceedingly likely to have a close relative we can base doses around. Biggest issues are bears, which the tranqs will also work on, right? Cats- when did sabers go extinct, again?” Gabriel asks, turning to Zach, who blinks a few times.

“What? I learn fast!”

“Not complaining, kid. No, even if this is  _ very _ late Pleistocene, we’d probably still have the possibility of dealing with saber-tooth cats up to and including genus  _ Smilodon _ and  _ Homotherium, _ but American Lions in the area probably suggests that they’re less likely to be here since they likely ate the same prey. What do the other two track sets look like?”

Gabriel and Nina lean down to examine each set individually. The last sets of tracks are small, too small to notice. Gabriel bites back a laugh.

“Black rat, these ones probably got out just before people showed up. Those aren’t anything to worry about, they’re invasive but they’re from this time.”

“Eagle,” Nina says at the same moment.

There’s a songbird-like chittering from a nearby tree. Or, at least, it  _ would _ be songbird-like chittering to anyone else.

Gabriel leaps out of the window with a smile.

_ “Hello, young thing. You wish to know the killers of the Capturer?” _ the eagle asks, and Gabriel is struck by how much brighter eagles are than hawks, for a single glorious moment.

This is the biggest eagle he’s  _ ever _ seen.

“Woodward’s eagle,” he breathes. The eagle is wreathed in sunlight like an angel of vengeance, a cruel beak and feathers the color of pitch and moonlight against a sky as blue as blue can be.

_ “That is what your kind call me, I suppose,” _ she says,  _ “I don’t suppose we could continue our discussion closer-up?” _

Gabriel turns back towards the house.

“Did anyone see a thick leather glove, longer than the average?” he asks.

“Yeah, there’s a couple. Want me to toss you one?” Nina calls, and does so before Gabriel can say yes.

“It’s so you don’t tear apart my arm if you get spooked,” he says, once it’s on, and the eagle nods.

He raises his hand, and the massive bird takes the opportunity. Gabriel’s never held a bird this big before- his mother was a falconer, he’s held  _ hawks _ since he was a little boy up to when she died, but he’s never held an eagle, and the weight is a shock.

_ “Thank you,” _ she says, eyes shining with intelligence,  _ “For not tying me to your hand.” _

“You’re not an idiot like a hawk,” he says, “You may look similar, but you’re not the same, not at all. And you have something to say, you’re not going to leave.”

_ “You’ve already figured out the Great Cats and the clever-paws,” _ she says,  _ “But there’s another, through there, bigger and greedier than any of them could ever be. It eats what it wishes, and it frightens even the cats.” _

“A bear?”

_ “Yes, I believe that’s right,” _ she says,  _ “You said bears were ‘the biggest issue’, yes?” _

He nods.

_ “As long as you keep the place of the light sealed-off properly, they will not be a threat to you. I can search,” _ she hums, and takes off, feathers stark against the bright sky.

* * *

“So, where do we think this anomaly links to?” Nina asks Zach, who stares at Maxie and Gabriel taking off down the street while Anna quietly radios Maria and her soldiers to meet them for backup.

“Given the distribution of species… I’d say coastal southeast States, somewhere on the plains. You saw her wingspan, if she’s going to hunt, she needs wide-open spaces. That tracks with the dire wolves and the lions as well- they’d prey on megafauna, which would require grasslands. I’d say… Texas? Yes, Texas makes sense. Late Pleistocene-epoch Texas had all of the species that came through, in addition to the giant short-faced bear and  _ Smilodon fatalis. _ ”

There are nods. Andrew continues taking readings of the anomaly, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“So, should we-”

“Start boarding up the entryways, and get ready to unboard them when the lions and wolves come back in. Unless they’re vital to the past for some reason, the fox and the coyote won’t be that much of a risk, and we can’t let the rats get through to the past, either- well, at least, not more than one rat.”

There are nods, although Nina’s pretty sure that none of them are listening. She sighs.

“I’ve already told you the mix for bears, they should work for short-faced bears as well. Be on the lookout, and make sure it opens from the outside so we can spook the lions back in, at the very least.”

“On it, ma’am,” Sergeant Torres- Frank Torres, she remembers- barks. Frank’s always been nice to them, though he’s never been particularly happy with their tendency to all run off together without backup whenever Anna and Maria aren’t available.

Nina helps where she can, setting up tranquilizer doses and pointing out where on each species could incapacitate without killing. Frank and another soldier- Sam Owens, she thinks his name is- start blocking off the door.

“So, how did you two join the ARC?” she asks, for the sake of idle conversation while they work. Frank shrugs his shoulders, and Owens takes the lead.

“Always been a Boston boy, Big Bad promised a job back home with some helping out attached as long as I signed the NDA.”

“Big Bad?”

“Major Hewitt. He’s a softy to anyone who doesn’t push the wrong buttons, but-”

“Overprotective as  _ hell. _ ”

“Oh, do you have nicknames for the rest of us?” Nina asks, with a grin. Frank tosses his head back in laughter.

“‘Course we do, ma’am. The Detective is Fuzz, obviously, Mason Number One over there is Bone Boy, Mason Number Two is Spaceout, you’re not Doc, Doc is our human medic-”

“I’ve met Auggie. Nice man.”

“You’re ‘Asker’ short for “Ask Her”. Kid is Beanstalk, Cap is just Cap, Daniels is Lucky,” Owens rounds out. Nina shoots him a smile.

Andrew finishes up his readings just in time, rolling through the door as something big and powerful makes its best attempt to pounce.

There’s a roar from the other side of the door, one that passes as quickly as it arrives. Nina’s glad they’ve hung the new wooden door as quickly as they have, because all three of them- four, when Zachary puts his back into it as well- shove at the door instinctively, as though if the closed door is going to be impacted on whether or not it breaks based on a couple hundred pounds or so of force.

The bear- because it can’t be anything except a bear, not really- slams a paw into the door one more time, before they hear the now-familiar sound of an animal exiting through the anomaly again.

Andrew’s spaced out, breath coming quickly. Zachary starts talking him down, voice gentle and measured, and Andrew shakes his head, a jittery smile crossing his face.

“I found something I think David’s going to want to hear,” he says. Behind Nina, Owens makes a comment on the unfairness of getting to use first names if you’re part of the nerd brigade.

“We like having you around just the way you are, but you could always go back to school or try to manifest a mutation, the nerd brigade’s always got open spots,” she says. It doesn’t come out as confidently jokey as she’d like- her nerves are still shot from dealing with the bear, after all- but it’s enough. Owens shakes with laughter.

“No, I’m good. All of you are sweet, though- it’s nice to be able to work with people who don’t have the ‘shoot first, ask later’ instinct. And where else is the most dangerous opponent I face a giant bear or a shaggy elephant?”

“Fair point,” Nina hums.

* * *

“Hey, Harvard. You thinking about applying when you finish high school? I know I did, never got in, though,” Maxie hums. Gabriel shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s a little late for starting that, I graduated back in May, I’ve been taking extra Massachusetts-specific courses to catch up on what I need to know  _ here, _ though.”

Maxie blinks, and stares at him. Gabriel cocks his head at them in return. Maxie sighs.

“You  _ definitely _ belong in the nerd brigade, kid. So, where exactly are we going?” Maxie asks as they make their way through the closest thing to forest that’s in the area (which isn’t much- Gabriel’s still unused to the fact that there’s no woods for him to run for hours in if he needs to). Gabriel shrugs his shoulders at them, following the large black speck that is the Woodward’s eagle with his eyes. There’s a strange scent on the air, and he hears something, coming closer.

There’s barely time to shift before he hears a screeched  _ look out _ and a shouted version of the same. Gabriel locks his claws into thick fur, and shunts his opponent to the side.

It’s one of the dires. A big, terrified-looking wolf, that whines and backs off when Gabriel snarls and stalks forwards, shaking his thick fur like a lion’s mane.

The countershading helps make him look even bigger, and the wolf cowers even more. There are growls from the rest of the wolves, coming closer, and Gabriel jerks his head at Maxie in a way that he hopes the soldier will understand-  _ get in the fucking trees, stupid. _

Wolves, after all, can’t climb.

Well. Not normal wolves. But Gabriel’s claws are sharp and retractable, and while he’s heavy, it’s enough purchase if he really needs it.

Which he won’t. Because this is going to work.

Gabriel fluffs himself up as much as he can, looks as big and threatening as he can manage- which is a lot, he’s twice any member of this little pack’s size- and immediately begins licking the wolf he’d spooked earlier, wagging his tail excitedly, though keeping it high to make sure they won’t get the wrong impression.

The third largest of the wolves- a female with grey around her muzzle, the other three’s mother, from the smell of it- cocks her head experimentally, and then looks at Maxie, and back to Gabriel, then back to Maxie, then back to Gabriel again.

Gabriel balances his front paws on the trunk in such a way that his head reaches Maxie’s hands, and the soldier ruffles the fur between his ears affectionately.

_ “We should be fine,” _ Gabriel rumbles,  _ “I made it clear I wasn’t a pushover, and that you were with me. The other three are mama’s boys to the core, what she says goes.” _

Maxie’s smile is tentative, and the soldier slides out of the tree with one hand on their weapon, just in case. Gabriel huffs.

_ “Don’t you trust me?” _

“Can you talk to them like you can talk to the girls?”

_ “No.” _

“Then no. Mistranslations are easy business, Beanstalk.”

Gabriel’s yawn is pink and red and white and shining and healthy, and it clearly freaks everyone else in the vicinity out quite a bit.

* * *

“Alright, so that’s the wolves, the bear, the giant coyote, and the eagle,” Nina says once the dires are back through the anomaly without much difficulty. Gabriel’s back in his human skin, and Maxie keeps obsessively checking the anomaly like it’ll spit a creature out to spite them in particular.

“Listen up, I think I’ve got something,” Andrew says, a grin on his face as he rechecks the readings. The tablet he’s got open looks stupid and oversized in his hands, but Nina’s nice and she’s not going to tell him anything of the sort while they’re here.

“These are the readings from the Precambrian anomaly. These are the ones that I had sent over from the Cretaceous anomaly, the one the girls came through. These are the ones from the Miocene anomaly, these are the ones I managed to wrangle from the Triassic anomaly, and these are from this one, the Pleistocene anomaly. You see the pattern that I see?”

“There’s no correlation between strength of anomaly and age-”

“But there  _ is _ a correlation on how they affect the surrounding environment. The earlier the anomaly links to- the more time in between- the wider and more distinctive the magnetic field. It’s not by much, but it’s something, and it’ll help us date the anomalies before any creatures come through- a heads-up, if you will.”

“That’s great, Professor, but is it really going to be that helpful narrowing down specific species if we don’t have continental or regional limiting factors? And a sample size of five isn’t much,” Gabriel says. Andrew shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s not much, but it’s the best option we’ve got.”

There’s a roar, from outside, and everyone indoors flinches. The eagle digs her claws into a perch alongside the wall, and Gabriel cocks his head to the side, listening for  _ something,  _ before his face loses all warmth and he tenses.

“Animal Control,” he says, and leaps out the window. Nina blanches.

“That’s the Large Animal Response Team, probably, I’ve worked with them before- we have to get them out of here,  _ right now. _ We can’t make a dozen or more people sign NDA’s, and there’s no way those aren’t the American Lions.”

She vaults out the window after Gabriel, tranquilizer gun attached to her waist.

* * *

“Is that Doctor Griffin?” Michael asks, staring at the woman in tactical gear waving frantically at them while the biggest wolf that Helena’s ever seen in her entire life faces off against three lions-that-aren’t-lions. They look like some sort of undiscovered species, really- well, they have the almost-gold coats of lions, except theirs are darker and greyer by far, and the male even has something similar to a lion’s mane.

Hybrids, perhaps?

“What have you gotten yourself into, Nina?” Helena calls, when the vet finally makes it within speaking distance.

“Can’t tell you without an NDA, just  _ don’t shoot. _ The wolf’s a shape-shifter and we’ve got a way to get them back to where they need to be, but  _ do not shoot them. _ Do you hear me?”

“Nina, what the hell is going on? Hang on, is that-”

There’s a light, in the corner of her eye, and Helena’s eyes narrow. She remembers a sobbed-out story from just over a year ago, and turns back, face pale.

“You were telling the truth. The whole time, you were telling the truth, and we didn’t believe you.”

“Shit, I forgot about that. Hey! Asshole, if you shoot the wolf, I will shoot you, you hear me?” Nina barks at one of the cops that’s pulled up nearby, before handing Helena extra tranquilizer.

“Tranqs are fine, they’re close enough to modern big cats that all you need to do is get the dose for a bigger big cat. Do not shoot the wolf.”

“Heard you the first three times, Griff,” Helena says, and lines up her shot. Darts in all three. It’s a good day, it seems, despite the earth-shattering revelations it’s brought.

“I’ll take this one,” the shifter, a tall, lanky teenager with dark eyes and a bright smile, says once he shifts back, pulling himself to a standing position with an immense cat lolling in his arms. It’s the male, she notes, all likely seven hundred pounds of him. Something flashes, behind the boy’s eyes.

“Gabriel, are you seriously volunteering to carry the heaviest one by yourself just so you can copy him?” Nina asks. The shifter- Gabriel- shrugs his shoulders, but almost seems to be in a trance, listening to the great cat’s breathing.

“So, what exactly are these things?” Helena asks, as they carry one of the not-lionesses to the big glowing ball of light.

“The anomalies or the lions?” Nina replies. Helena blinks.

“So they  _ are _ lions.”

“Not quite- close, though. American Lions. Relax, Frank, she heard about the Vancouver Incident, she figured it out on her own.”

“So like…”

“According to DNA studies on remains of these guys, think closer to lions than any other big cat, if you want to get down to it. They do look like greyed-out lions, don’t they?” Nina asks, running her fingers along the thick fur of the lioness’s side. It’s unfairly soft.

“Yeah,” Helena says, “They do.”

Gabriel’s carrying the third lioness in, and the three are being prepped to go back through, when the anomaly… pulses. Nina’s eyes widen in horror, and she tries to move the lioness, before the anomaly  _ shuts. _

“Big Bad’s gonna be  _ pissed, _ ” one of the soldiers- Nina called him Frank- says. Helena feels a trill of fear run up her spine.

“Increase the dosage for all three, prep them for transport to the Menagerie. Good thing is, we’ve got something set up for animals like this. Also good thing is, they’re not going to be the biggest predators on base, that’s Stratus. Frank, Sam, start thinking up names, we’re going to need them.”

“Names? Nina, you need to get them  _ sterilized. _ The male, preferably.”

“Too late for that,” Nina says, “Look at them.”

Helena does.

“Oh no,” she says softly. Nina groans.

“Oh no,  _ indeed. _ Now, let’s get these three into transport pens.”

* * *

“So, your creature count at the moment makes-”

“Two tyrannosaurs, one temnospondyl, and three American Lions, possibly up to thirteen considering both females are pregnant. The male is going through sterilization surgery at the moment, as are any male cubs that are produced.”

“Quite the menagerie, Hewitt,” Lester hums, “I’m not going to be able to keep it a secret to my own team much longer, likely, but I do hope to keep it so until we figure out our little… rat problem.”

“With all due respect, Lester, I think you’ve got the lucky end of it- all of your stay-behinds are small animals.”

“Yes, that  _ is _ true, isn’t it. Did you ever find the fox?”

“Modern red with a tracking collar, was curled up in the bedroom.”

Lester grins.

“Did you ever figure out names for them?”

Hewitt looks like he’s exhausted with the world for just a moment, staring at Lester like he’s too tired to even bother.

“We have three lions, and my younger daughter is still in a Disney phase. Mufasa, Sarabi, and Sarafina, did you think anything else would cut it?”

“I was honestly expecting Scar,” he replies, “Or Kimba.”

Hewitt snorts, and cracks his back. Clementine squawks from the corner of the office, before stalking over and putting her snout to the screen.

“Clem, don’t  _ do _ that, come  _ back  _ here, don’t take my mouse-”

Lester’s still laughing when the screen goes blank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been so fun to write so far! this chapter and #7 are longer than average, because I had a *lot* to say about them. We're roughly up to episode 2.5/2.6 in the show continuity.  
> also... i researched american lions for HOURS just for those few lines of dialogue. i hurt


	7. admissions of gratitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more time for the team to settle into place, and more time for the security team to slowly get used to the idea that they're working with a group of people who use their admittedly impressive collection of braincells exclusively to do their jobs better and not to keep themselves uninjured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some team bonding!

There’s a Cambrian anomaly the next day- or what Andrew’s little chart  _ says _ is a Cambrian anomaly- that closes within a few minutes, wavering unsteadily. That’s the only anomaly for over a week, however, which gives the lions time to settle in.

Sarabi and Sarafina have been shortened to- well, Sarabi’s name has stayed the same, but Sarafina has been shortened to just Fina, while Mufasa keeps his long name and slowly accumulating number of nicknames. The current one that’s settling in pretty well is Sweetheart, funnily enough, because that’s what he is, with food aplenty and a pair of carnivores- well, one carnivore (Stratus) and one obligate omnivore (Gabriel) that aren’t afraid of him fussing over him from time to time.

Nina’s honestly astounded at the transformation. Emma’s less shocked, more inordinately pleased with the fact that the massive cat is chuffing in her lap.

“I think he’s sweet,” she says, running her fingers through the short mane, which is starting to fall out in clumps. The thick fur is still as velvety as ever, and Emma still thinks it’s absolutely bizarre that an animal that killed a man a little over a week ago is sitting with his head in her lap, calm as anything.

Of course, that might be mostly the influence of the tyrannosaur looming over the lions with a wary gaze. Stratus doesn’t trust them in any way whatsoever- which, when she considers it, is absolutely valid. They don’t have the same open line of communication with the lions that the tyrannosaur has with the humans.

However, David’s been sorting through felipaths, carnivorapaths (of which there is one ninety year old woman and a three year old- Emma’s become familiar via Maria and Gabriel’s overheard conversations with how truly _ tiny _ the community of creature-speakers is, and how much smaller the community is for those who have more wide-reaching communication talents), and full-scale panglots (of which Emma knows that there aren’t any that are originally from this  _ planet _ \- David’s  _ loud _ when he’s frustrated and the people around him are trustworthy) for anyone who can wrangle the cats into functional members of the team like Stratus is now considered to be.

Gabriel’s the fallback, for the moment, and he’s practicing, back to the cats. One of the lionesses stalks up behind him, and he  _ shifts, _ four legs instead of two, saying hello with a chuff that makes the humans in the room snort.

The lioness jerks back for a moment, surprised, and stares at the rest of the humans accusingly.

_ “Cats are hilarious,” _ Gabriel hums, before shifting back. The lioness begins to wrestle with him playfully, and Emma and Nina begin to take steps  _ out _ of the room full of dangerous predators that might eat them and into the room of the dangerous predator that won’t.

The kid laughs, and shifts skins again, vaulting through the window and shutting it behind him.

“They’re sweet enough,” he says, “All of them. It’d be better if we could pass them over to a zoo- the females we could maybe pass off as hybrids, but the second they’d do DNA, all bets are off. Honestly, I wish they went through and the eagle stayed, we could at least argue with her.”

“I thought you’d hate cats, brat,” Emma needles. Gabriel’s eyes widen and then narrow, again Stratus noses him, concerned, warbling out a sound that Emma recognizes, now.

His  _ name. _ Not his human name, obviously, but the specific tyrannosaur-sound that represents Gabriel.

Emma copies it, under her breath. Stratus jerks her head up, and locks eyes with her, before gesturing back towards the Moondancer. Emma repeats the sound, louder this time, and Stratus  _ nods. _ Emma’s gotten good enough at reading the scaly snout to tell what a happy expression on it looks like.

They’re called out for another anomaly after a few more minutes, the sound chirping in her earpiece, because of  _ course _ there aren’t any speakers in the animal pens.

They’re constructing more, now. Stratus’s is the only one that opens into the major space, but the lions are getting their own separate, acre-plus space just off of the main building, with high fences and plenty of places to explore.

Emma can’t think about it right now, though. She shrugs on her jacket, and watches the others do the same.

* * *

The next one is on the beach, Silurian sea scorpions to be specific. They manage to herd the arthropods through the anomaly without much effort, and nobody’s been hurt  _ yet _ , despite how growly Gabriel’s gotten- in fact, it’s six o’clock in the evening on a part of the beach known for not being the… cleanest, and it’s not exactly the warmest beach around, either.

Maria is grateful. That makes two anomalies with nothing stuck on their side, and they wrap things up rather succinctly, though they do need to set up a perimeter and containment gates around this particular anomaly and check it periodically, because it doesn’t close for another  _ three days _ . It’s the longest any anomaly they’ve seen has been open, not counting the five days that the Cretaceous anomaly Stratus and Clementine came through (according to the notes, at least).

They have to justify their budget restraints all the way up the wire, of course (or, at least David does, and David complains  _ loudly) _ , but according to their mouthpiece of the brass, having three-to-thirteen extinct big cats, an ancient amphibian, and two tyrannosaurs is “fucking  _ awesome _ , gives us bragging rights that you wouldn’t  _ believe _ ,” and apparently the funding for  _ their _ sake is a guarantee, so Maria’s grateful for Stratus, too, and says such to the tyrannosaur, who rumbles her name for Maria affectionately even though she probably barely understands what Maria is saying at best.

“Yeah, yeah, love you too,” Maria says, skimming her hands across the tyrannosaur’s snout and leaning into it, trying her best to give the massive dinosaur a proper hug.

Stratus leans into her as well- just the tiniest bit, just enough that Maria feels the force but doesn't crumple like an empty soda can under it.

Maria strokes the scales above Stratus’s eyes, the ridge that gives her shade, and studies her thick dark eyelids that act as glare reduction when they’re open.

“Tyrant lizard, hmm?” she says, “I don't know about tyranny, sweet girl, but you're certainly a queen amongst queens.”

Stratus snorts affectionately, and leans her whole body down.

Maria smiles, and holds her massive two-pronged hand, half hidden under a thick coat of feathers.

If Stratus had facial muscles like humans do, Maria thinks she’d be smiling by now.

* * *

Gabriel’s sitting on top of the meeting table in the office just outside of the bullpen. Anna is sitting next to him, just as panicked.

“Why, exactly?” Andrew asks, eyebrow cocked but moving to join them anyways. The kids are halfway to hyperventilating.

“Oh, someone brought something that had some lobster in it in for lunch today and it got all over the microwave. I’m not allowed to move until they finish decontaminating the area, and Gabriel’s allergy isn’t serious- he’s the one who reacted, I just got here- but he’s not allowed to move either.”   
“Isn’t shellfish on the List Of Banned Substances, though?”

“Yeah, but somebody forgot. I don’t know who. I took Benadryl though, I’m fine,” Gabriel says, “And now Anna and I are allergy buddies. It’s you who has the peanut allergy, right?”

“Me and Frank. Mine’s not serious, but you know the boss, he doesn’t take any chances.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Must be pretty nice to know that any Kosher restaurant in Boston is safe to eat from, huh?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Gabriel and Anna say at the same time, fist-bumping, but it’s half-hearted on his part and his eyes are vacant.

“So, like, anaphylactic, or-”

“Nah, I’m worse than Anna is, and I’ve only had to go to the hospital once for it, and it wasn’t because of anaphylaxis. I wasn’t in a good place before here, and that’s really all I’m willing to say on that topic,” Gabriel growls, throwing a fork at one of the security team’s head. It misses, to Andrew’s relief.

“Hey, Gabe? I think you need to calm down,” Anna says. Gabriel takes a look at the fork imbedded in the wall, and the twisted mess of metal in his other hand, and blanches.

“Oh. Oh, no. No, David’s gonna be  _ so mad _ \- I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, you know I didn’t mean to, right?”

He’s already burst into tears. Andrew figured this was going to happen, sooner or later, and it must have been the shellfish that reminded him. It’s good that he’s dealing with it, though. Anna motions for someone to grab David. This is about three minutes before the detector alarm goes off.

* * *

“What,” Zach asks, “is  _ that _ ?”

“The kid finally cracked, we might actually be able to get somewhere now, but he isn’t here,” Andrew hums. Zach shakes his head, and points out the creature crawling up the wall.

“I currently don’t care about where everyone is in their trauma journeys, I care about that thing and how it doesn’t look like anything else I’ve ever seen before.”

“It’s clearly a mammal, look, it has fur in some places. No eyes, though, which is weird. The ears are tiny, too, so… scent?”

The creature turns and lunges towards them, claws extended, once it hears the sound.

“Sound, sound,  _ definitely  _ sound!” Maria yelps, pushing them backwards as the security team takes care of it.

“Wait, if these things can open to the past-”

“They’ll open to the future, too,” Zach finishes, and turns to Maria, “Tell your men we can probably use live rounds on this thing, we don’t need to fret nearly as much about wrecking the timeline.”

Zach’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and the future creature snarls, jumping forwards. Fortunately, aim seems to be better than usual, and they start going down with relative ease.

That is, until a woman escapes the anomaly, hands up and eyes feral.

“Guns down, guns down! Ma’am, please come with me-” Maria says, directing the startled woman- clearly in some form of altered fancy/survival gear, the kind that Zach might have worn a version of himself if he’d been on a dig.

“Are you alright?” he asks. The woman sighs, and smiles.

“Those are Future Predators. I have to ask- what year is it, here?”

“2016, why?”

She nods.

“Alright, then. I have to get going-”

Andrew grabs her arm.

“Ma’am, you're not going back in there. I don't care how important your research is, you can continue it from our base once you're vetted. We’re not going to let you kill yourself for the sake of curiosity.”

Zach lets go of his precognition for a moment, untrusting, and  _ sees. _

Not much. To the end of this woman’s life- soon. The woman on the ground, below the corpse of the raptor, looks almost identical to the woman in front of him now.

“You keep going it alone, and you die, soon. At least get a change of clothes, new supplies, and a meal, ma’am.”

* * *

“You need to get vaccinated for smallpox,” is what she replies once they get back to the base. She’s sipping at a water bottle like it's the end of the world.

For her, it probably was.

“Okay. David?”

“Big Bad’s not  _ here, _ remember, he took the kid home when Gabe had a breakdown over busted forks and lobster,” Frank says, poking his head through the door. Zach narrows his eyes.

“No, I  _ don't _ remember. Did someone forget the rules about allergies? Speaking of which-”

“I don't have any food allergies,” the woman says, “And you don't have to keep calling me ‘ma’am’, my name is Professor Helen Cutter.”

Frank scrunches his nose like he’s trying to remember where he’s heard the name before.

“Hey, mind if I ask the Cap about something?” he asks. Zach waves him off.

“Well, I'm Professor Zachary Mason, I teach paleontology, the handsome man over there is my husband, Professor Andrew Mason, he teaches physics. Mind telling us anything we should know?”

“Don't experiment with the future predators,” Helen says, “And don't meddle in the past.”

“We figured as much. Experimentation would make them more likely to pop up sooner, huh?” Zach says. Helen’s face is delighted.

“Absolutely. The primary goal should always be-”

“Preservation of any and all life involved,” Zach finishes, “for the sake of the creatures and humans both, innocent or not.”

Helen offers a sad little smile.

“What about those that pose a threat to humans?”

“Send them back through the anomalies of we can, keep them happy and healthy, physically and mentally, if we can't. We don't want a Tilikum situation, after all.”

Helen’s eyes narrow.

“Tilikum?”

“A male orca at SeaWorld. He's responsible for three out of four fatal orca attacks on humans. And the only orca attacks on humans that we know of are in captivity. Tilikum specifically dealt with… a lot of things… prior to his incidents. And one of our ladies is much larger and far more dangerous to land-dwellers than Tilikum has ever been, and so, we make sure she has a decent territory size, she feels included and gets proper emotional support, and she’s not separated from her baby sister, the only member of her tightly knit matrilineal family group that was stuck here with her.”

Helen sits back. She looks almost impressed.

Frank rushes back into the room, panic clear on his face.

“Arrest her,” he breathes. Helen’s smile drops.

“Do you mind if we continue to carry out this conversation? It's quite interesting.”

“Fuck it,  _ sure. _ Zach, just remember- one to ten good points doesn't mean she’s  _ right, _ and we need you here, man,” Maxie says, taking over the conversation. Zach offers them a smile and an ‘absolutely, you're the boss’.

* * *

“So, you want to talk about-”

“Your treatment of the animals here.”

“Well, that's more Nina and the kid’s territory, I work with very,  _ very _ dead animals. But we all know Stratus’s individual names for each and every one of us now, so I think getting started on the native language of a large carnivore we work with is a very big point in our favor.”

Helen  _ laughs. _

“Oh, you are sweet. Fresh meat for the carnivores, appropriate mental stimulation?”

“We  _ only _ have carnivores. Emma asks Stratus to help solve cold cases, I don't think  _ she’s _ bored. Clem’s a baby, all babies do is eat and sleep. The cats are happy enough, even if Mufasa’s not happy about the whole neutering business, but we don't exactly have the resources to let the lions keep breeding, you know?”

“Oh? Species?”

“I'm not telling you that. You can figure it out in here. Enrichment.”

Helen laughs again.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to keep me in here for long, but that, before,  _ was _ your freebie- you’re going to want to get vaccinated for anything that’s been ‘Eradicated’ recently, any diseases that were more common among humans at any point in the past. In exchange for the Tilikum Argument, of course, and no experimentation on Future Predators.”

“I can’t promise the latter on a personal level, I don’t have enough power to, but I’ll take your word for it and pass it on that experimenting on these things is bad news,” he says, “But what is it, exactly, that you  _ did _ ?”

“Figure it out yourself,” Helen hums, “Enrichment.”

Zach leans back in his chair.

“It’s got something to do with the UK team, for sure. Big Bad doesn’t tell us jack shit about them- all hush-hush, believe me- but you were clearly surprised we were Americans.”

“They can’t cover up these forever, you know,” Helen says, leaning forwards strangely. Zach blinks at her.

“We can  _ try. _ You underestimate human curiosity and overestimate survival instincts,” Zach replies, drumming his hands on the table. The door opens- it’s Emma.

“Big Bad thinks you’ve spilled too much already. Up, Prof, let me do my job.”

“Right. Detective, right. This isn’t an interrogation though, is it?”

Emma blinks at him, and pushes her reading glasses up. Zach shrugs, making sure to take up as much space as he can, and leaves.

Maxie, Frank, and Sam sit outside the room, listening intently.

“Boo,” he says, bored. All three soldiers glare.

“Apparently she’s done something recently, something  _ bad. _ Whoever’s in charge of the UK team clammed up right quick, but they managed to get across that we’re not to let her go-”

The power fails, right at that moment. There’s a panicked screech from Stratus, that echoes from the animal pens to where they are in the bullpen. There’s a grunt from inside the interrogation room, but Zach doesn’t care all that much, too busy racing for the detector or anything analog that they have available for him to contact the rest of the team.

“Is everything alright?” a voice says- David. A shaggy mass of fur bounds past towards the animal holding pens.

“Is everything alright with you both?” Zach replies, “Until the lights went out, we were all good.”

“It’s fine. We talked about it, he’s okay. He might be a bit aggressively affectionate over the next few weeks, but just be nice, you know we’d do the same for you.”

“I’ll hold you to that, I might have accidentally informed a time traveling supervillain of our activities.”

He can  _ see _ David’s exhausted sigh, even with how dark it is.

“It’s fine. You didn’t know, and we’re DHS, not CIA. The only reason we’re secret is because humans are curious to a ridiculous extent.”

“We work for the  _ DHS _ ?” Zach whines, “Does ICE steal all our funding?”

David laughs, before shutting off abruptly.

“It does, actually, which is one of the several dozen reasons abolishing ICE would be a good thing. Then, our budget could be split less draconically, although I think that might mostly be because of how recently we arrived.”

“The DHS was founded in 2002.”

“We were founded less than six months ago. Listen, I  _ agree with you _ . But our primary worry at the moment is taking care of this blackout and making sure none of the animals escape and cause issues. Stratus isn’t a problem, she knows humans are friends, not food, but she can’t see at night and I have cause to be worried about the lions getting out and hurting someone.”

“What about Leroy?” Zach asks. David snorts, turning his flashlight towards the ceiling.

“If you’re worried about the amphibian with short legs and no ramming strength to speak of, go ahead and check his habitat. But the actual animals to worry about are the lions- you’ve seen cats open doors before, right?”

“I was thinking of getting a cat, but now I’m not so sure,” Zach replies, taking the offered second flashlight.

“You should. There’s a bit of an argument going on between my daughters right now over cat or dog. I caved on the pet part…  _ if _ they could agree.”

“Oh,  _ smart _ . Let me guess: little sister’s team cat, older sister is team dog?”

“Team  _ large _ dog to be specific. She wants the biggest shelter dog she can get her hands on.”

“Isn’t that just Gabriel, though?” Zach jokes. David has to stop to control his laughter.

* * *

In the time that the detector is down, a familiar, immense anomaly flickers open for a moment in the middle of a warehouse. It’s long enough for a tiny raptor to dart through, running nonstop, following a strangely familiar scent all the way to the door of a house in Boston. It stays open, for a long time, but nothing from so long ago comes through after. Something darts from modern to prehistoric, a woman with short dark hair and a clever smile about her face, but the past aches with such images, and does not remember new ones of the sort anymore.

Morgan who is home, opens up the door at the scratching, and takes a look at the raptor (a juvenile  _ Hesperonychus _ ) that darts through, and moves to grab some cooked meat out of the refrigerator. The microraptor (technically speaking, even though it looks like any other small dromaeosaur beyond the feathers lower down on the legs than they’d normally be, a bit like those of a booted eagle) chirps, bouncing after her excitedly.

There’s not much it can do besides, anyways. An  _ adult _ Hesperonychus would only weigh five pounds soaking wet.

Morgan scratches the Hesperonychus below its chin, and decides to name him Charlie.

She debates calling her dad, figuring that Charlie and Clementine will get along fine for the time being, and if it comes down to it, Clementine is bigger and heavier than Charlie is and she could probably fit the tyrannosaur into the crate.

This isn’t something she needs to call Dad about. She doesn’t  _ think _ .

She’s glad that Zoe hadn’t been home. The last thing any of them need right now is for the raptor to be named  _ Pancake _ or something like that.

She offers her thickly sleeved arm, and the raptor takes the hint, scrambling up into Morgan’s arm as she sets about getting comfortable until her dad gets home.

He calls her, asking if she’s safe, mentioning the anomaly in the warehouse. Morgan sheepishly tells him about Charlie, little Charlie, curled up next to Clementine on the couch (which his claws might be ripping to shreds).

Her dad laughs so hard he cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- yes stratus eventually lets charlie sit on her head when he can get himself up there.  
> \- helen is not ever able to use the tilikum argument, ever  
> \- the "you can't do this alone" bit is, in this au, the inspo for the cleaner clones.  
> \- emma definitely has a concussion


	8. new dentist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> auggie is properly met + immediate fallout thanks to helen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how is this my life

The backup generator in the infirmary kicks in immediately, but it takes a while for Anna to reach it. By that point, Emma is sitting in the infirmary nursing a concussion, the Three Stooges flutter around her anxiously, and Helen Cutter has escaped.

“I really think you should have taken someone in there with you,” Auggie says, “At the very least, you wouldn’t have gotten hit so badly if you had someone to watch your back. You say she  _ slammed a chair over your head? _ ”

“As soon as the lights went out, yeah. Took the handcuff keys off of me, ripped the door open, slammed the chair in Maxie’s face next, except they didn’t go down as hard.”

“Right. Okay. So,” Auggie groans, wiping a hand over his face, “You’re going to be  _ fine. _ ”

“Hey, Doc?” Anna asks, knocking on the entrance to make herself known, “Is everyone going to be okay?”

“Yes, Sergeant. The concussed are going to be benched for at  _ least _ a week, if not two- go  _ home _ , Banks, there’s no way you’re going to be able to work in your condition.”

“You know you can just call us by our first names, right? The rest of us do. And she’s going to see that as a challenge,” Anna warns. Doctor August Weber runs his hands through his hair and groans.

“Sorry, Doc, that’s just how I am,” Emma jokes, and moves to stand up. Auggie goes back to fussing, looming over his patient irritably.

“Where is everyone else, Sergeant?” the medic asks, pushing his glasses up his face, “I was under the impression I would have to treat far more injuries thanks to the blackout than this.”

“The infirmary is the only place with working power at the moment, Doc.”

“Lucky, don’t antagonize the doctor,” Maxie warns, but there’s fondness in their eyes.

“I’m not antagonizing him. Right, Doc?”

“Actually,” the doctor says, “It would be best if you searched for those that are already injured. Take- take Torres with you. He’s the least injured of these three.”

The lights outside the infirmary finally flare back on, and the detector screams for a few moments, before going silent, for about five seconds, and then screaming  _ again. _

Frank and Anna take a look at each other for a moment, and start running.

-

“Another oceanic anomaly?” Anna grumbles, staring at the blinking chart.

“In the inner harbor, Daniels. Listen, Nerd Brigade-”

“We’re on it,” says Gabriel, pulling on his sweatshirt, the one with the little logo embroidered by hand into the upper arm. He’ll probably need a new one soon, Maria notes- with food and sleep he’s shot up at least an inch or two in the past month and gained about ten pounds or more of muscle.

Frank sighs. Emma takes over.

“No, you’re calming down Miss Big And Scary before the accidentally kills someone. Nina, you stay here, take care of any of the animals that were hurt in the blackout. If whatever it is in the harbor has gotten to any of the local wildlife, you two will be the first to know, trust me. Andrew, you’re with the field team, see if we can get date references from a distance, and I’m staying here and taking a nap in the infirmary on Doc’s orders,” she says. Maria gives orders out to her team- who to stay, who to go with them, who to report to the closed warehouse anomaly they all know well and track anything that’s exited it.

That’s when David mentions his children’s new pet, clutching his phone to his shoulder and asking if that’s going to be a problem. Maria shakes her head.

“Sir, thanks for the heads-up, but all it does is confirm that the anomaly was open long enough for something to come through. Get the kid do dig if anything came through after the tiny raptor, otherwise we should be good.”

“Good. Good,” David says, before returning to his call. Maria smiles faintly, before snapping back into leadership mode, directing the majority of the team towards the doors and the rest back into the bullpen.

It’s going to be a  _ long _ day, isn’t it?

* * *

_ “I was worried about you all,” _ Stratus rumbles, leaning her heavy head into Gabriel’s hands. Gabriel hums, running his hands through her feathers for debris. She’s tall enough at the chest right now for someone to walk just in front of her hands and clear them easily, but Gabriel’s tall, too, and he gets a faceful of feathers when he tries.

“I figured you would be,” he says, “That’s why I ran to find you. I know you think we’re very squishy and mostly useless, but we can make things of ourselves, you know. By the way, I’m sorry, but it sounds like we just barely missed your ticket home.”

The offset rumble takes just a little bit to recognize as a laugh, but Gabriel does recognize it eventually, and raises an eyebrow.

“You’re saying you  _ don’t _ want to go home and be with your family again?”

_ “Honestly? I’d want my family to come  _ here. _ But terrors separate on occasion, and I’ve always been something of an adventurer,” _ she says,  _ “And it’s not like I’m  _ alone. _ I have you, and I have Clementine. It would be nice to go home, but it would be nice to stay here, too. Free food, free medical care, nice people.” _

“Hey,” Gabriel says, and the red-eyed subadult noses him playfully, “I need you to know that you’ve been accommodating this entire time, and if you genuinely need anything- physical contact, to room with another large tyrannosaur, whatever- we’ll try our best to make it happen.”

Stratus cocks her massive head.

_ “I'd like that,” _ she says, as sheepishly as an animal weighing at least two short tons can be,  _ “I’d like that very much, but I wouldn’t want anyone to be separated from their terror for my sake.” _

Just then, Gabriel feels a poke in the back of his head.

_ ‘Yeah?’ _ he asks. On the other end is Zach, he can feel it.

_ ‘You still have the book I lent you, right?’ _ he asks. Gabriel nods, and remembers Zach can’t see him, before pushing forwards an affirmative.

_ ‘Right, yeah, thanks. I haven’t read any paleontology-based books for years, I didn’t realize how much our understanding had changed.’ _

_ ‘Right, okay. So this is your quiz- what’s a big fish with a bony beak instead of teeth that’s big enough to eat me like a snack?’ _

Gabriel can feel the strain he’s under, almost like a panicked giggle, and answers freely.

_ ‘Dunkleosteus.’ _

_ ‘Full points! We’re trying to heat-sap the thing, Sam is pretty good at it, you should take some pointers.’ _

Gabriel winces, though he does know that he really needs to work on a lot.

_ ‘You couldn’t even freeze a plate with a puddle in it, the first time you tried,’ _ Gabriel thinks, making sure it doesn’t push past into the connection,  _ ‘And you can heat-sap enough to account for  _ hours _ of sleep now. Of course the man ten years older than you would be better at it.’ _

_ ‘Any reason you called me beyond an impromptu quiz?’ _ he asks, hiding the twinge of bitterness as best he can. They can bench him, but they’re not going to  _ leave _ him, not now, and he needs to stop thinking they will.

_ ‘Oh, yeah. Doc needs someone to calm down the techies, he doesn’t want to have to sedate them. You any good with the traditional Moondancer stuff?’ _

_ ‘I’m literally talking to you in our heads right now.’ _

Gabriel shuts down the connection, and sighs.

“Duty calls. You’ll be good in here for a bit?”

_ “I’ll be fine, brat.” _

“You’re a  _ year _ older than me, Stratus, I don’t think you have the right to call me brat.”

He shifts and runs anyways. There’s the ever-present yelp of surprise when a wolf the size of a small horse leaps over the desks of the bullpen, but the infirmary is always open to him.

_ “I’m here for stuffed animal duty,” _ Gabriel says, and is promptly hauled up onto one of the beds while one of the IT guys digs long fingers into his fur.

“Thank you,” Doctor Weber says, ruffling the fur between Gabriel’s ears. The Moondancer reaches out, and  _ pulses _ , wrapping calm-happy around anyone who feels like they’re not, smoothing down edges and sanding down breaks.

_ “Trying to make myself useful, Doc,” _ he says,  _ “Outside of my mutations, I don’t exactly offer much, might as well do as much as I can with what I’ve got.” _

Doctor Weber moves to check over anyone who’d received actual injuries in the blackout while those who’d just been badly spooked move over to hug the wolf.

* * *

Over in the harbor, things aren’t going very well.

Sam  _ burns _ , the air cold as anything around his hands. Maria worries for him- this style is supposed to be heat released as energy, not heat brought into oneself until it blows outwards like a grenade.

An energy barrier flickers to life as the Dunkleosteus tries to ram their boat again. Zach clings to the edge of said boat in the corner of her vision-

“Shut up and GO HOME, you stupid piece of orca food-”

Maria’s of the opinion that it would probably take an orca pod of a decent size to take down a fish this big, even if the backside is relatively unarmored. The Dunkleosteus is dangerous business, with shears strong enough to chop armored fish into tiny little pieces- who knows what it could do to a fleshy orca, especially a calf?

Sam breathes in deeply, and releases. The pillar of fire goes straight up, missing anything that could get burned, thankfully, except for one drone camera that makes Julia Rudd, one of the security team that’s been covering Sam, curse. It flares outwards for about thirty seconds, before Sam can continue sapping heat from the Dunkleosteus again.

“I have to make physical contact to sap it directly,” he says, “I know there’s no hope of getting it in a net-”

“There is  _ definitely _ not,” Maria interjects.

“-But if I get close enough, I could chill it enough to make it want to go back home. The Devonian anomaly  _ is _ warmer, after all.”

“Like we tried to do with the ichthyosaur a while back?”

“Right, yeah, but the Dunkleosteus is cold-blooded,” Sam says, “The great thing about heat-sapping is that theoretically speaking you can do it as long as you need to, but I can’t sap the ocean entirely, it would take too long, especially while I’m trying to make sure the boat doesn’t stop working.”

“Got it. We’ll try to get you close,” Maria replies. The massive fish can’t be guided with nets- it must be blocked off by sheer force.

The harbor has a small enough entrance that they can set up something approximating a barrier, but there’s no guarantee the Dunkleosteus won’t just go straight through it.

For what seems like the millionth time, Sam’s hands skim the water.

“We can’t shove it brute-force back through,” he says, “We  _ have _ to trick it and hope for the best.”

_ ‘Fortunately,’ _ Maria thinks,  _ ‘We’re definitely not short on bait.’ _

* * *

Nina thinks that nobody gives Leroy enough attention.

The amphibian is getting bigger, sure, and he’s not particularly  _ needy _ , but he gets lonely, and he’s so obviously bored it hurts sometimes.

And so, Nina makes sure to check up on him last, in order to insure she has enough time to care for him properly. Most people would see Leroy’s toad-skin body and wide, black eyes like a salamander’s, and nope out. But Nina has worked with animals far stranger than a temnospondyl, although most people would raise eyebrows at that declaration. He’s just a big, toothy, false-gharial looking salamander.

And, for some reason, he  _ adores _ attention.

She hadn’t noticed it, at first, but she certainly does now. Leroy likes eating fish and being talked to, even though extended physical contact is probably bad for him.

And so, Nina talks to him.

Occasionally, Leroy will let out a squeal or the sound of a balloon deflating, turning wobbly eyes back to her to make sure she’s still there. Nina will pat his snout and smile.

The amphibian slides back into his pond, swimming off. It’s a real pond- sort of- now, dug out from the floor and filled in with dirt and water. Nina’s Knowing had told them quite a bit about what was safe and what wasn’t, and even if they pull in another vet or five for this project, she’ll still likely handle all of Leroy’s care personally.

Nina slides out of the door carefully, and bumps into Doctor Weber on the way to the bullpen. He looks… frazzled, for lack of a better word.

“I’ve worked with chimps before, if you need help with your workload, Doc,” she says, voice soft. Doctor Weber looks up, adjusts his glasses, and sighs.

“No, you have your own duties-” there’s a used-to-be-threatening, aggravated rumble that rolls through the hallway, and a blur of fur races past- “I cannot ask you to assist with mine.”

“Listen, the lionesses are each a month off from their due dates, Stratus isn’t going to let anyone in to see her, and Leroy just gave me The Signal that he was done with interaction for the day. I literally have nothing else to do, Doctor Weber,  _ let me help you. _ ”

“This is not about helping me at all, Doctor Griffin,” Doctor Weber says, pointing a finger in her face, though she knows he isn’t actually aggravated, more ridiculously amused, “This is because you are nervous and bored and need something to do.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious, for your noted observation. Now.  _ Do you need help _ ?”

“Yes, yes I do. And call me August, heaven knows the rest of them never will.”

Nina grins.

“You already know my name. Now, let’s make sure nobody else did anything stupid while the lights were out, yeah?”

“Oh, Harding nearly crushed her foot under a flipped table,” August notes. Nina, if she were drinking any coffee, would have spat it out.

“When does Fallon miss that kind of thing?”

“When she is moving people out of the way and having no concern for her own personal safety.”

“Fair point,” Nina says.

* * *

Julia and Maria stare at each other as they lift Sam by his legs over the water.

“You think this is going to work? I mean, that think is pulsing like nobody’s business, we might not have enough time yet,” Julia says to her. Maria cocks an eyebrow.

“Rudd, if you think that this team’s weird luck will tolerate anything other than this working, you haven’t been paying enough attention to what the Nerd Brigade has been up to.”

Julia snorts. Sam yelps.

“Captain, my job may keep me on base ninety percent of the time, but even I know that if someone says ‘Nerd Brigade’ they mean you and Sergeant Daniels, too.”

“Obviously,” Maria replies with a snort. Sam yells in triumph, and her and Julia haul him up. Ice covers his hands.

“That,” he says, “Was  _ very _ cold.”

“I’m well aware,” says Julia, “We could see the freezing around you. And hey, look!”

Maria does. The dark shape of the Dunkleosteus below the water makes a beeline for the anomaly, pulsing in the middle of the inner harbor. It slides through smoothly. The anomaly pulses one last time. Maria grips the little bag with the ichthyosaur fluke bone in it around her neck tightly, praying the creature has gone through.

“I think Griffin’s going to panic a bit about her previous comment,” Frank says at the end of the boat. Sam laughs.

“Oh, I already talked to her about it,” he replies, “It’s weird she didn’t  _ know _ already, though.”

“Nina doesn’t turn her mutation onto other people- at least not usually,” Anna cuts in. The single-form shifter looks nauseous, which tracks- she  _ is _ a bloodhound after all, and bloodhounds aren’t usually on boats.

The team rolls off the boat without much fanfare. Zach and Andrew’s arms keep Anna up as she stumbles, and Maria and Frank do the same for Sam, who looks out of it.

“I just need sleep,” he says. Julia snorts.

“Sleep is for the weak.”

* * *

“So, Nina, are you-”

“Shut.  _ Up. _ ”

“I’m just  _ saying _ ,” Anna purrs, leaning into the vet’s side, “If I was quasi-omniscient, I’d be embarrassed about letting this slip.”

“I already said I talked to her about this-” Sam hollers from the door as he leaves. August narrows his eyes, and Sam quiets.

“I don’t turn my Knowing on other people, you all know this! I want you to feel comfortable telling me things!”

“And that’s very sweet,” David says, stepping around the medic and placing a bundle of feathers very firmly into Nina’s hands.

“Who’s this?”

“Charlie. Zachary thinks he’s a Hesperonychus,” David replies.

“Stratus was the one to recognize him, though,” Gabriel hums. The Moondancer kicks off from the ground and floats above Nina’s head, eyes shining with amusement.

“Ninaaaaa,” he whines, “I haven’t been able to do  _ anything _ today. Everyone else fights a giant fish and I’m stuck with glorified babysitting duty.”

Nina glares at him.

“That ‘glorified babysitting duty’ is making sure a several ton apex predator doesn’t get upset and hurt herself. Now stop levitating to show off and get your feet on the ground again, we both know that’s some of the most basic magic anyone ever bothers to learn,” she says. Gabriel huffs, and sits back down on the infirmary bed. The Hesperonychus darts from Nina’s arm to the teenager’s, and he coos over the grey and yellow raptor (which Nina  _ personally  _ thinks looks like a juvenile oriole, but she’s not going to say that in front of an animal that’s small enough to make her life very difficult if he wants to) as much as Charlie will allow.

“Hey! You caved and got the girls a pet!” Andrew jokes, bumping David in the arm with his elbow, and flopping onto another of the empty infirmary beds. Zach quickly follows him. Maria groans with irritation, shoves both Nina and Gabriel over, and falls down face-first onto the thin mattress.

“So, this is our hang-out spot now? This is the plan?” Anna asks, catching the hint and moving onto Emma’s bed. David continues to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“I would definitely prefer if my workspace is not-” August begins.

“We’ll bribe you with high-quality chocolate if you don’t make a fuss about it,” Emma says, shoving Anna over, “Sit over here, boss.”

“Well, in that case,” August says, walking off to his desk to observe, “Talk away. Let me know if you need anything!”

“David,” Emma says, voice flat, and David blinks at her. Nina hides a snort behind the fan of Charlie’s long tail feathers.

“What?”

“Where’s Clementine?”

David shifts uneasily.

“The IT team was fawning over her, and she seemed happy. I didn’t think it was good for me to-”

The distinctive not-quite-hatchling-crocodile sound of an amused Clementine fills the air, and the hatchling tyrannosaur, looking pleased with herself, races into the infirmary.

“She’s not happy with you for abandoning her to the piranhas,” Gabriel translates. Charlie leaps out of his arms to play, wiggling fiercely, despite objectively being far lighter than the rapidly growing Clementine, who, as a six-month-old, weighs something in the realm of thirty or forty pounds now. The tyrannosaur seems conscious of the size difference, and is surprisingly gentle with her tiny friend.

Nina wonders what she’ll look like, fully grown. The only other example that Nina’s seen herself is Stratus, and according to Anna, the mother and other members of the pack had various and obvious color morphs as well, meaning that Clementine is likely the only normal any of them will ever see.

That, of course, sends her into a mental tangent over what various other tyrannosaurs might have looked like. Nina casts a glance over to Zach, who seems to be thinking the same thing.

It’s nice to have down time, Nina decides as she watches the theropods tussle on the floor. Something rubbery lands in her hand.

_ ‘Safe,’ _ her Knowing tells her. Nina gives it an experimental squeeze, and the toy squeaks.

Both heads whip towards her so fast that Nina worries for the health of their owners.

“Sure, go ahead,” she says, tossing the squeaky toy down to the floor. Clementine lunges, and squeaks the toy in joy.

“Don’t swallow anything you rip off,” Gabriel warns. Clementine nods, and, with wide, wondering eyes, squeaks the toy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter nine should be up whenever i feel like it bc 10 is already done.  
> also clem with a squeaky toy is my favorite image ever.


	9. heads down, eyes up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fuzzy wings and carrion, and the promise of something behind their eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in one day? i know, right?

There is a light and a shadow in the air, dark and impossibly wide. It blocks out the moon and the stars, for just a moment, circling.

Hungry.

It’s not the only one. A few others follow it, the buffeting warm sea breeze, even as close to fall as it is, filling the space between their wings.

The cries are high and light for such massive creatures. Their eyes are sharp, and their stomachs are empty.

The first are small. This is not anywhere close to enough. The bigger ones are carrion- sort of- the freshly dead, three that slipped and fell in the depths of the night and one that had not been so lucky.

It is time to find somewhere more worthwhile to feed.

* * *

The detector is down for maintenance from the hours of twelve o’clock in the morning to two o’clock in the morning three weeks after the Dunkleosteus Incident. This, apparently, is just enough time for four people and three cats to go missing.

Emma’s the one to get the call (again) when they find the bodies of the first two victims. They’re already on their way, Anna and Gabriel the last to be picked up at three o’clock in the morning in their dinosaur carpool.

“You know, when I heard the guy saying  _ Detective Banks _ left the force to go monster hunting, I thought he was sleep-deprived and hallucinating, y’know? But-”

“Jerry.  _ Jerry _ , I work for the DHS now.”

“DHS, really? This some sort of immigration thing or-”

“I am  _ not _ with ICE and frankly I’m offended you even suggested that. We’re already on our way to Newport, Jerry, but it’s nice that you called, we have an idea of where to start,” Emma responds, glaring at her phone and its audacity to not to be able to snap shut so she can end the conversation dramatically.

“So nothing new?”

“Two dead, two still missing. Looks like some huge stork got them. Pecked to shreds.”

“That would suggest either a huge future bird,” Gabriel begins.

“Or a large pterosaur,” Zach continues, leaning forwards from where he’s sitting in the backseat with Andrew. Gabriel reaches over Anna in the middle of the middle row to fistbump the paleontology professor. A large book is open in his lap, barely visible in the next-to-nothing light. Emma’s phone pings in hers.

“There’s one witness,” she says aloud, “Says it was big enough to blot out the stars and swooped down like an angel to smite the sinners. Well, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard a large animal described in those kinds of terms-”

“If I pulled up the telepathic network I’ve been working on setting up while we were hanging around the Woodward’s Eagle I think you’d be singing a different song,” Gabriel replies, head upside down next to his headrest.

“Right, yeah, but isn’t a telepathic network supposed to have at least two people running it?” Maria responds.

“If you’ve got a scanning or forcefully  _ based _ telepathy mutation, yes. I don’t, though,” he says. Emma can feel the thread, there- something  _ pulling  _ in the back of her head.

_ ‘I’m a Moondancer, and that means that if I’m good at anything, it’s  _ this, _ ’ _ a voice in her head replies. It’s Gabriel, clearly, but it’s not quite- it’s more the  _ idea _ of sound. It doesn’t feel bad, just…  _ strange. _

_ ‘NEAT!’ _ and Emma winces. Gabriel glares at Anna, who shrugs her shoulders.

_ ‘What, I didn’t know what volume we’re supposed to use!’ _

“Still too loud. You have to consciously push things towards the network, same as speaking.”

There’s a swirl of thought-speech in Emma’s head after that. Most of it is instinctual- Emma gets the feeling she’s the  _ last _ to be brought up to speed with this, from how smoothly everyone else speaks, even David, who’s miles away by now.

_ ‘Don’t bother Maria while she’s driving,’ _ Emma pushes tiredly. Nina grins, and leans forwards.

_ ‘Anything you say tends to go through me first, though- there are no private calls unless you’re talking just to me, here,’ _ Gabriel warns, then grabs one of the hats he’s embroidered with their logo, shoves it over his face, and goes to sleep.

It takes a few minutes for the network to shut down entirely. Emma shrugs, and turns to the other occupants of the car.

“We’ve still got about an hour,” Emma says, “You all wanna… I dunno, figure out what we want to do for breakfast once we get to Newport?”

“I’m on it,” Zach says, “Dietary restrictions?”

“Peanuts, mild, shellfish, mild but very annoying times two.”

“Doesn’t Newport have the oldest synagogue in the States?” Anna asks, “I’m pretty sure there’s at least one place that you’d be able to find zero shellfish in.”

“Right, okay, that’s a good point. Any other allergies?”

“In the ARC as a whole, yes. In the team, no,” Maria responds. She flicks the lights in the car off with her right hand. The shadow that is Nina shuts her book and leans forwards as if to glare.

“I’ve got a few places we can stop by, but I think coffee is highest priority,” Zach chirps, hauling himself forwards to show off his findings.

Out of the seven of them, three more fall asleep before they reach Newport.

* * *

“Oh, yum, coffee,” says Andrew, gladly grabbing the black coffee from the holder. Gabriel grins, and clutches his sugary barely-coffee abomination to his chest. Maria sighs, and Gabriel snorts.

“You’re one to talk.”

Emma snaps her fingers to catch their attention. They turn to her as one.

“You all need to be respectful,” Emma says. There’s a screech of tires on pavement, nothing unusual. Gabriel jumps about five feet into the air anyways, and Emma sighs like Maria had.

“Don’t do  _ that _ , for example,” she says. Gabriel smiles sheepishly.

“Do you mind putting me down?” he asks. Maria snorts, and drops him.

“Ow,” Gabriel says, mostly for show, and hops up, grinning. He’s settling in well enough- well, he  _ thinks _ he’s settled in well enough, he can’t ever be sure.

“Hey, mind letting someone know what you’re all doing out in the open at five o’clock in the morn?”

“Jerry!” Emma says good-naturedly, “This is my team.”

Gabriel knows his and Anna’s night vision is better than the rest of the teams, which means she’s probably the only other team member that notices the cocked eyebrow and incredulous expression on the man’s face.

“Most people around here know me as Jerome or Sergeant Bayer, Emma,” Jerry says, “Not Jerry. Folks around here are a bit wound up if they’ve heard anything- are yours going to be much trouble, or-”

“Dr. Griffin was one of the head veterinarians at the Franklin Park Zoo before coming to work with us,” Gabriel says, glad Nina had thought to hide any trace of a dishonorable quitting months ago, “Captain Spinner and Sergeant Daniels both have experience beyond reproach, and the Professors are here to supervise.”

“And you?” Jerry hums. Gabriel grins.

“I’m Dr. Griffin’s research assistant, but I do work for the Professors as well,” he responds, the lie sliding easily off his tongue. Gabriel draws himself to his full height, and taps his foot impatiently.

He’s got at least six inches on the man, which apparently helps sell this tale.

“Alright, come with me,” the Sergeant responds, “But if you make it worse-”

“I don’t think we  _ can _ ,” Emma interjects. The Sergeant blinks at her.

“You’re probably right,” he says tiredly, “Let’s just get this over with.”

* * *

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Zach hums. The kid’s next to him, busy flipping through the massive book for the comparative examples of fossilized tracks.

“Considering you’re thinking massive pterosaur and post-mortem damage since no pterosaur would go after  _ living _ prey this heavy, then yeah, I am thinking what you’re thinking,” Gabriel responds, shutting the book and placing it in his bag. He draws the hat lower on his head.

“It’s too big, if I’m going to be honest. This thing’s got to have a what, twenty foot wingspan?”

“Bigger n’ that,” Zach instructs, crouching down, “Look at the distance between these. If it  _ is _ a pterosaur, it’s got to be immense. Probably at least a thirty foot wingspan.”

“As big as a giraffe,” Gabriel hums. It sparks something in the back of Zach’s head, a descriptor he’s heard a million times before.

“Quetzalcoatlus,” he breathes, “The giant of the skies.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,  _ indeed. _ ”

“Okay, whenever we find them, I’m going to try to memorize them as best I can, that would be the coolest form I have  _ ever _ taken.”

Zach stands, and cracks his back.

“Haven’t you shifted Stratus before?”

“Okay, second-coolest.”

Zach sees Nina over by where the tracks end, frowning up at the sky, and hurries over.

“We’re thinking-”

She raises her hand to cut him off, and says, “I heard.”

“The thing is, Quetzalcoatlus was big, but it wasn’t strong enough to carry a carcass this big off. If they’re hungry, they’re going to be feeding on the ground.”

“I’ve got it,” Gabriel says with a grin. Black and silver replace tan and gold and warm brown, feathers and claws and eagle’s eyes replace skin and hair.

Zach recognizes this bird. Figures, that Gabriel would have strong memories attached to the Woodward’s Eagle from Harvard. The massive bird lunges into the air, immense wings beating down and sharp eyes flicking in what seems like every direction.

“Follow that bird, I guess!” Anna shouts, leapfrogging over Zach’s head and racing down the street.

Zach stares at Nina. Nina stares at Zach.

They break into a run.

_ ‘You think it’s a better idea for us to follow them or just to stay here?’ _ Emma asks across the network, though it’s clearly directed towards the other two who’ve stayed with her.

_ ‘Stay here. I decided once I graduated high school that I would never run for no good reason ever again.’ _

That’s Andrew, for certain. Zach’s grin practically splits his face, and he races past Nina, who’s not the fastest, but has more stamina than Zach  _ ever _ will.

It’s only when Zach’s cramping as they make their way up the hill, well over a mile away (and Zach has to thank all the digs he’s been on for keeping him in shape), that he realizes this was probably a bad idea.

Fortunately, it seems they’ve gotten close enough to the pterosaurs for Gabriel to see it prudent to shift back and crouch behind the ridge below the anomaly, which is very visible.

Unfortunately, it’s visible because it’s over thirty feet in the air.

* * *

“So,” David says, rolling back away from the monitor with Lester’s face in prominence upon it, “Do you have any experience dealing with aerial anomalies and large pterosaurs?”

Lester leans back in his own chair, head cocked.

“Indeed we do, a Pteranodon. You’ll need to knock them out and raise them up to the anomaly’s height with a crane, or lure them through, since you likely don’t have anyone to talk them through,” the man says. David frowns.

“We  _ do _ , though.”

“Do what?”

“Pterosaurs are more closely related to dinosaurs and modern birds than crocodiles are, at least according to the currently relevant Professor Mason, which means there’s no reason our youngest team member should have issues speaking with them.”

Lester inhales sharply.

“You have an archosauripath as well?” he asks. David nods slowly.

“ _ How _ did you think we’d managed to wrangle a nearly full-sized tyrannosaur back into her pen?” he replies, voice high, before he sighs and continues, “He’s the youngest member of the team, the shape-shifter I mentioned.”

“Interesting,” Lester says, “You should be fine, then, as long as the pterosaurs are open to reason. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be.”

“I do,” David replies, “They’re the size of giraffes.”

The last thing he sees before he ends the call is Lester’s normally polished expression cracking into a defeated sort of shock.

Charlie chirps curiously from his place of pride in a tiny box with a pillow in it on David’s desk. The juvenile Hesperonychus’s eyes focus on the clacking keys, and his tail wiggles, a bit like a cat’s.

David switches the display to the security cameras from the tyrannosaur pen, then to the bullpen, then back to where he’s preparing for yet another justification as to why they need well over a hundred pounds of meat a day.

* * *

“You know, I don’t know why we’re driving in after them,” Maxie says. They look up at the gathering clouds in the sky with trepidation. Frank pats them on the hand. Sam is sprawled out in the backseat, yawning and clearly settling in to take a nap.

“It’s because the Nerd Brigade and Boss woke up sometime around one o’clock in the morning and didn’t need backup until now. You know Big Bad, he doesn’t like kicking up a fuss if he doesn’t have to.”

“I’m not saying I’m unhappy about getting more sleep than the rest of them, but you’ve got to admit, it doesn’t look very good if we show up two hours late after everything’s taken care of,” they say, checking the rearview mirror. The brand-new looking white car is still there, even after the wide circle Maxie has made.

Someone’s following them, and someone’s  _ been _ following them since they drove through Boston. Maxie curses.

“Call Fuzz, she’s the boss on-site, let her know that someone is definitely tailing us.”

* * *

Emma hangs up and turns to her fellows as they walk their way up to the anomaly. Andrew and Maria squabble over the food Andrew’s managed to snag from the places that are somehow open at this atrocious hour (it’s six-thirty, Emma’s gotten started on cases earlier in the morning, but she also woke up at three o’clock so she’s not much of a yardstick to measure by). It’s light, sure, but only because fall hasn’t officially started yet and the equinox is still weeks away.

Gabriel rushes over as soon as they’re close, snagging a third of the assembled food and shoving it down at a speed Emma doesn’t think is particularly healthy.

“Sorry,” he says (she thinks, because it’s muffled from food), before swallowing and speaking with far more clarity, “I’ve been trying to get their attention and work with a proper argument, but it’s not been going well so far.”

“He means he hasn’t even tried yet.”

“I’m going to try  _ right now _ , just you  _ watch me _ ,” Gabriel bites back irritably as he waltzes over the ridge. Feigned surprise fills his voice as he introduces himself.

“I’m still genuinely surprised that  _ ever _ works,” Emma hums, watching as the Quetzalcoatluses (Quetzalcoatli?) stare down at their youngest teammate.

“You’re not the only one, believe me,” Andrew replies, belly to the ground, looking for all the world like he’s trying to press himself into it so he doesn’t get spotted by the massive pterosaurs, one of which seems to be getting chin-scratches from a surprisingly enthusiastic Gabriel at the moment. Zach snorts, and rolls over beside his husband, wiggling deeper into the grass.

Gabriel appears to be giving the Standard Talk, over how dangerous it is to stay, the lack of proper food, et cetera. Considering the only other being the Standard Talk has been given to is Stratus, though, Emma can’t quite say that it always works.

The pterosaurs, though, seem to have gotten the hint. The largest of the small group takes a bit of effort to get into the air, but the others have progressively less and less trouble. They vanish through the anomaly like they were never there.

“What the  _ fuck _ are those,” a familiar voice hisses. Emma gives herself a moment to close her eyes and curse (and another moment to plan what she’s going to say), before turning around- and proceeding to immediately get interrupted.

“The animals responsible for the post-mortem damage, safely relocated to an environment where the chance of human contact is so close to zero that it might essentially  _ be _ zero,” a voice calls.

“Not according to Helen Cutter,” Zach grumbles, flipping over and sitting up. Gabriel rushes towards the team, shifting while he does so, a snarl echoing though their heads.

Emma sinks her hand into the thick pale ruff of fur, and smooths the hackles down. To her right, she sees Zach do the same with Anna’s, though the bloodhound is several times smaller.

“You retire from the force to fight dinosaurs and manage to wrangle yourself a Moondancer, huh?” Jerry says, eyeing the golden-eyed wolf with trepidation, “I get it. I won’t talk. Thanks for showing up, Emma.”

“Welcome,” Emma replies, casting a glance at the anomaly above them, “Let me- let us- know if- if anything else comes through, yeah?”

“Sure,” Jerry says, still half out of breath, staring at the fading anomaly sparkling up in the sky. Emma stares with him, head cocked, and simply… enjoys the view.

It’s not exactly something she gets to appreciate often, after all. Anomalies  _ are _ beautiful, but usually she’s hoping they close sooner rather than later and don’t maroon anything on her side.

“Wait. You all said post-mortem damage, right?” Jerry asks. Zach hums and nods.

“Yeah. These guys are big, but not big enough to think of living humans as food. They’re probably primarily scavengers, and they saw a couple of dead bodies, and-”

_ ‘That’s exactly what happened,’ _ Gabriel hums into their heads,  _ ‘That’s why the damage was so severe, but clearly post-mortem, not ante-mortem. Trust me, I asked.’ _

Zach incorporates this into his own explanation. Jerry narrows his eyes.

“This is gonna be rough,” he says, and gestures up to the anomaly, which winks out of existence after one final pulse of brilliance, “Shame we can’t ask your bat-winged friends up there, huh?”

“Unless you wanna try to get sixty-seven million years into the past, I don’t think that’s going to be very feasible,” Zach hums in response. Anna sighs happily.

“I love our job.”

* * *

“Did you get the license plate number?” Emma asks over a proper, heavier breakfast. Cramming ten people into the largest booth available is difficult, but they manage it well enough.

Maxie’s busy stuffing more french toast into their mouth, so Frank answers for them, sliding the number in question across the table.

“Tiny white car, Massachusetts plates.”

“I’ll ask around, see if anyone can run the numbers and see who might’ve been following you,” Emma replies, stealing some of the fries off of Nina’s plate. The veterinarian encircles her food protectively, glaring at the detective. Emma tries stealing from Gabriel and Anna, too, and gets double-smacked in the hand for her efforts.

“You have your own,” Anna whines, “And you don’t burn as much as Gabe and I do. You’re  _ bored _ , we’re  _ hungry. _ ”

Emma laughs, and sits back.

This is her life, now.

She’s perfectly okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is Hell Week #1 and y'all better be ready


	10. probabilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> introduction of The Dice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL WEEK HELL WEEK HELL WEEK

“They’re here!” Andrew shrieks, darting into the bullpen excitedly with a box held over his head, “I got twenty total for the team to split between them and a couple more to hold in reserve, but they’re  _ here _ !”

Maria claps her hands together and  _ cackles. _

“How small is the font?”

“Very! Some of the names were long, but they also just made the dice bigger, so-”

“Oh, it’s not going to be a Magic 8 Ball? I thought the plan was a Magic 8 Ball,” Gabriel hums, rolling the office chair towards the ecstatic professor.

“Right, okay. So, everyone not in the know about our special purchase, please gather round, so I may present… The Dice,” Andrew says, dumping out the bag into a bowl so everyone can see.

The Dice turn out to be multicolored, shining, gem-like D20 dice, inscribed with tiny white letters listing various time periods.

“Oh,” David says, leaning over the bowl and pocketing a die that looks like an almost opaque amethyst, “Are we betting?”

Andrew whips around so quickly that David worries whether or not the man’s head is going to snap. His grin practically cracks his face in half.

“ _ Now _ we are,” the professor giggles, and slides away in his office chair to pull up a spreadsheet, before turning back to everyone else. Maria steps forwards.

“Alright! Nerd Brigade and Doc get first dibs on dice! There’s enough for twenty people to bet-”

“I don’t think it’s fair for Zach and I to gamble, but I’d like the dice, please,” Nina says, “Someone else can use ours for the betting pool, though.”

“This isn’t an actual betting pool, we’re not putting  _ money _ on it-” David attempts to protest, but is drowned out by eager voices and clever hands.

“Everyone  _ write down _ your first… let’s say eight? Yeah, first eight results, and your name, and I’ll put you into the spreadsheet.”

David rolls the dice eight times. His eyebrows jump at the HC the sixth roll gets him to, and the general lack of ‘Precambrian’ on the die in general.

The first roll says  _ Ordovician. _ There are a total of twenty bets. He’s one of seven that put the Ordovician first.

* * *

Thirteen people curse loudly when the Ordovician sea scorpions make a mess out of a local saltwater swimming pool and then procede to, quite rudely, die before skedaddling through the anomaly like they should. This, apparently, is not the best of ideas, because less than an hour after the first anomaly closes, the next opens.

David’s second roll had said  _ Oligocene.  _ He’s one of five that did so- strange luck, considering nearly half of them had been right the first time despite the numbers pointing in an entirely different direction, though he does suppose they were due for the Ordovician.

He’s right about the Oligocene, too. Gabriel enthusiastically repeats the screaming match with an alligator of his youth (involving several personal anecdotes  _ including _ the fact that a) he has cousins in the UK and b) he hasn’t talked to a single member of either side of his family ever), and chases the creature back through. Alligators in Maine. Who would have thought.

(David would have thought).

Usually, they’re given at least a few days of down-time before the detector rouses them all again. This time, the down time is about twelve hours- enough to go home, wash off, and pass out, but unfortunately not enough to actually get any work done. David pushes down the guilty feeling about his inability to be with his family for more than a few hours at a time, and listens to Gabriel’s increasingly outlandish theories.

“So, I was talking to Zach about the biggest bird species to ever live, and anomalies throughout history, and I was thinking- what if legends about the Ziz were inspired by  _ Argentavis _ ? Thunderbirds aren’t native to the Eastern Hemisphere, and there isn’t a bird big enough to be a culprit. I guess maybe since anomalies are rifts in  _ space _ -time, theoretically displaced thunderbirds through anomalies  _ could _ be responsible, and it definitely fits with the whole blocking-out-the-sun bit-”

David’s glad the kid’s settled in enough to yammer. Gabriel stretches out in the passenger seat, jabbering on about everything and nothing, and even though he’s annoyed about not being able to take his daughters to school, David can’t help but be amused by his foster son’s antics. David almost doesn’t notice the soft grin that crosses the kid’s face.

Almost.

* * *

His third roll says  _ Future _ . The creature is downright terrifying, with wide, watery eyes and a demonic toothy smile, waddling on immense feet connected to stubby legs. The giant penguin (but it’s not really the same kind of giant penguin that there-once-was) honks on the security footage, and sketches plans for world domination in the dirt.

Okay. David can handle the world being taken over by giant sentient penguins in the distant future. He can  _ do it. _ It’s not going to be weird and/or creepy.

By this point, David is the only one left in the running. He clutches his die tightly, and hopes beyond hope, seeing that little HC on his spreadsheet, that it’s wrong. The giant penguin looks directly at the security camera, and points at it with one unnervingly long flipper, letting out a screech that can be heard even through the distortion in the speakers.

David really doesn’t need Gabriel to translate exactly what the giant penguin said, he knows a threat when he hears one, thank you very much.

* * *

David’s fourth roll says  _ Triassic. _ He’s begging not to be wrong, begging this hell week to  _ end _ because this is three days straight with at least one anomaly per day and often at least a death or two per anomaly (including killer penguins from the future).

At least one of the IT guys- Miles- has threatened to quit if they don’t cut the sound of the detector down at least by half, and Andrew looks like he’s going to start the journey towards a nervous breakdown in the next few days.

The  _ Coelophysis _ pack that makes its way through the Triassic anomaly on day three isn’t a particularly welcome sight. The team are  _ all _ snarly and snippy today, and while it doesn’t reflect particularly poorly on their performance, the fourth anomaly on little to no sleep really isn’t a good thing. David’s starting to get worried. If these keep coming at the rate that they are currently, someone’s going to burn out.

Gabriel’s screaming at the Coelophysis pack to  _ just go home already, we’re not awake enough for your shenanigans _ , and David has to agree with  _ that _ sentiment. He hopes this will be over soon enough, but he’s got four rolls left on his dice, and from how things are looking- well.

He wouldn’t keep his own hopes up, so he won’t try for anyone else’s.

* * *

His next roll says  _ Miocene. _ More alligators, this time in New Jersey. The only reason they know that this particularly large ‘gator isn’t just someone’s escaped pet is the fact that Gabriel has an exhausted conversation with the creature that culminates in a long rant about how the universe isn’t fair and time travel sucks.

Nina is also dead on her feet by this point, but she graciously offers her assistance with making sure the alligator can make his way home. Apparently, the creature is very well-mannered, and doesn’t mind the thirty minute phone call that Emma takes to keep David updated. However, the Mastodon that makes its way through quite quickly after the alligator goes home is not nearly as pleased.

_ “SHIFT STRATUS, DAMNIT!” _ he hears from over the phone, along with the hyper chitter of their youngest team member trying desperately to calm down a Mastodon.

This, apparently, works, because the hairy cousin of the modern elephant vacates the premises when requested to.

After giving at least two members of the security team injuries significant enough to take them out of the field.

“All RIGHT!” Sam says when he’s informed of this by a half-dead Doctor Weber, “I get to sleep the rest of this hell week away! Try not to die!”

“We shall, Owens,” replies Auggie, who stares at David with a ‘Help Me’ expression on his face.

* * *

“So you’re saying that a  _ die _ accurately predicted six anomalies?” Helen asks, shifting in her cuffs. David sighs.

“I think it’s the dice-roller’s weird luck more than the die itself, but yes. Would you mind actually not trying to escape for a few hours? The team needs sleep like they need  _ air _ right now, and I mean, from what we’ve heard you’re not exactly the best person, but I’m sure you get  _ that,  _ right?” Frank asks, leaning forwards tiredly. David glares at him through the glass of their new interrogation room, before his phone buzzes.

“Yeah, this is Major Hewitt, who’s on the other end?”

_ “Professor Cutter,” _ a voice says. David snorts.

“Yeah, no, Professor Helen Cutter’s in custody. Who is this?”

_ “Professor  _ Nick _ Cutter. Her husband- ex-husband- she went missing for eight years and is legally dead and we didn’t ever file divorce paperwork, so I don’t know. I work with the UK team. Would you mind telling us what you know?” _

“I don’t know that you are who you say you are, and I don’t have any way to get confirmation unless you put Lester on the phone. If you do, I’m happy to offer any information we’ve gathered, from negotiation tactics to care for large carnivores to how to quietly threaten lower-ranking government officials  _ with _ those large carnivores.”

_ “David, I appreciate the thought, but  _ please _ don’t try to get into an argument with Cutter. I’ve seen your arguments. You won’t win.” _

“Alright then. What do you want to know?” David asks chipperly, rocking back on his heels.

_ “It’s your physicist that’s responsible for the readings to date anomalies, yeah?” _ Cutter asks,  _ “We’ve found them incredibly useful, it would be good to be able to put him in touch with our primary mechanical engineer here- just a video call would work-” _

“Oh, Andrew- Professor Mason Number Two- would be glad to be pulled out of field work for at least a few hours, believe me. I’ll pass the message on. Anything you’d like to say to your ex-wife before she maims a third of my staff escaping from my facility again?”

_ “Would you mind telling her that the local police being absolutely convinced you killed your wife for eight years does horrible things to a man’s emotional health?” _

David does so. Helen glares at him through the glass, but she can’t see him, which means her glare is hilariously wrong in its placement. Frank leans back in his chair and falls over onto the floor, which seems to relieve some of Helen’s irritation.

* * *

Andrew’s video call with Connor Temple does end up taking those several hours, which is all well and good as they still haven’t been hit with the seventh roll’s result yet. David’s starting to believe in the chatter that it’s  _ going _ to happen, and is just as hopeful that Roll 8 will release them of their burden well in time.

Helen escapes, like she always does, except this time it’s without much fanfare or much of a kerfuffle, with no injuries besides a self-inflicted one thanks to Maxie tripping over their own tired feet in the chase. David can’t really find it in himself to care, as long as they’re all alive and kicking, and nobody’s found it in themselves to quit and leave everyone else hanging.

“Oh, you have no idea how much I sympathize, Big Bad,” Frank groans, popping his back and glaring at the detector as if  _ that’s _ the source of their problems. He doesn’t realize he’s voiced that concern aloud until Frank rubs the back of his head sheepishly in agreement.

“So, what does your spreadsheet say is the next round up?” the man hums, “I’m not particularly interested in surprises.”

“It  _ says _ Paleocene,” David replies, “But there’s no way to be certain that it’s right-”

The detector blares again. David’s going to encase that dice in resin and never let it roll again if this is the result.

The animal that’s come through to southern Pennsylvania is a Champsosaurus, a bizarre reptile that… also looks like a crocodilian. Apparently, it’s not quite close enough, because Gabriel’s irritated grumbling through the phone is definitely audible.

_ “It’s not even like listening to someone speaking a completely different language over a bad radio signal, it’s just completely indecipherable,” _ he explains. David winces sympathetically, certain that something’s going to bust one of these days. It’s been just under a week, and they’ve had at least an anomaly every day.

His own back aches just looking at the accumulated amount of driving time.

The resin cast isn’t complete, not yet, since it still has to dry, but it’s not going  _ anywhere _ now. Unless the large resin block rolls, he supposes, since it  _ is _ a cube.

There’s one more roll left. David looks, bile rising in his throat, at the last of his results. He knows well enough what kind of danger that could come from this one, just  _ how big _ the creatures back then became. He runs his fingers over the word  _ Jurassic, _ and dearly hopes that this will be the last of them for a good long while.

* * *

The resin has cracked. That’s not good. Zach fishes out the die, and sticks it in his desk.

“Just don’t look at whatever results it gives you. Or, better yet, take it with you and make it a good luck charm.”

The detector blares on schedule (that schedule, of course, being: there is no schedule). Emma groans and pops her back.

“What time period did Big Bad’s chart say it was?”

“Jurassic. Gabe, stop sleeping, we need to go,” Maria replies, dragging the Moondancer out of his chair by the hood of his sweatshirt. The teenager squawks, long arms flailing, and falls to the floor. David hides his wince of guilt at the bags under his and everyone else’s eyes quite well, he thinks.

“Where’re we goin’?” he whines. Emma peers at the detector as if the light hurts her eyes, which it probably does.

“New York,” Nina cuts in, looking surprisingly well-rested, “And since when does the Detector cover the Middle Atlantic and not just New England proper?”

“For a few weeks now. Sorry about the constant driving,” Andrew replies, “And it covers  _ all _ of the Northeast, not just New England and the Middle Atlantic.”

_ “If you try to make me drive to Virginia, I  _ will _ quit,” _ Fallon barks from where she’s gearing up. Gabriel’s already slumped over exhausted onto Maria’s shoulder.

“Hopefully, this is the last one for a while and y’all can get some sleep,” David says, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if that will give him any energy.

_ Hopefully. _

* * *

The creature of the day, apparently, is a juvenile  _ Diplodocus _ that has already cracked its whip-tail into more than one unfortunate bystander. This one is the longest of the negotiations, because apparently sauropods aren’t the brightest of the bunch.

Who would have extrapolated the data of their tiny brain sizes and made the guess that they wouldn’t be particularly intelligent even if they could use such a brain with incredible efficiency? David would have. Along with most paleontologists that ever existed, with the exception of a very tired and even more irritable Zachary Mason.

David feels pity for the beast. The Diplodocus leaves through the massive anomaly after a long, long deliberation. An Allosaur- he doesn’t know what kind, but according to the constant feedback he’s getting from the new communicators, it’s big and mean-looking, but turns to putty when given positive attention and scritches to its soft feathers.

According to Zachary, later, it  _ does _ make sense- there’s fossil evidence of megalosaurs with feathers, and they  _ are _ more basal than carnosaurs.

David thinks it’s the sheer quantity of paleontological revelations that have taken place in the past few months that’s made him malleable to bone talk, as they’ve taken to calling it.

The next day goes without an anomaly. Then the next, then the next, then the one after that, too. David sleeps, takes his daughters to school, takes care of the small carnivores that have taken over his house, and does paperwork. Gabriel sleeps for eighteen hours straight and looks like the dead when he wakes up.

David’s phone buzzes. The alert for the detector hasn’t gone off, not yet, which means it must be something completely different.

_ “Hi, is this Major Hewitt with the US ARC team?” _ a voice asks on the other end.

“Yes, why are you calling?”

_ “Hi, I heard you all had an adult tyrannosaur on your hands already from the British team, I was wondering if you could take ours off of ours?” _

David nearly drops the phone in shock.

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

_ “Lieutenant Kenneth Leeds. We would keep on keeping her here ourselves, but she’s not doing too hot and she won’t let us treat her. From what I’ve heard, you all have a vet that specializes in tyrannosaurs?” _

“I wouldn’t call it a  _ specialty, _ but she’s been working with a pair of tyrannosaurs for- it’s been what, three, four months?- now, yes.”

_ “Would she be able to treat an Albertosaurus?” _

“Absolutely,” David says, pulsing a  _ wake up you’re needed _ out across the network, “I’ll need to know where you are and what government you work with, however- I don’t think large animals crossing state or national lines without ample warning is a good idea.”

Leeds laughs nervously.

_ “Yeah, I get that,” _ he says,  _ “We’re in Vancouver. Yours should be getting the paperwork for it, soon, and I’m sorry it’s on such short notice, we were only given your number to call yesterday and we’ve had her for nearly a year, can you believe it?” _

He sounds stressed out of his mind. David sympathizes.

“My team’s only been active for a few months now, so I can, but we’d be happy to treat her, even if we can’t take her out of your hands. I do see a few reasons why it might be a problem, but we already have an agreement to take on large tyrannosaurs if we’re asked to from the UK team. The brass will need some convincing, but-”

_ “Thank you so much,” _ Leeds replies,  _ “I think my superiors would kill me if I let anything happen to her, man-eater or no.” _

“You should still worry,” David says, “But we can take her. Probably.”

And that’s how two tyrannosaurs, a raptor, three (soon to be more) lions, and a temnospondyl becomes three tyrannosaurs, a raptor, five lions, and a temnospondyl.

The Canadians have apparently named the golden-dappled Albertosaurus  _ Honey _ , of all things.

If he’s going to be completely honest, David thinks it fits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i've been way more active on Birdie, recently, but this one's going to have some hella timeskips soon so I can get to the Cousin Reveal and not keep drowning in angst. Fortunately, by the end of Twelve in both fics, they'll be at roughly equivalent points in the timeline! I promise!  
> also yes honey is the albertosaurus from primeval new world, which has the same acronym as pacific north west, where it takes place, which i think is HILARIOUS


	11. so stressed, you're having kittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gabriel makes friends with a couple more animals and The Cubs are born!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! so much content, one day...

The cub count numbers two, named Ginger and Nutmeg by Morgan before Zoe can get to them and name them after Lion King characters. They’re settled in and affectionate, but they take a significant amount of monitoring, and so, the second veterinarian is hired out of the San Diego Zoo (not one that they didn’t have to explain things to, unfortunately, but three living tyrannosaurs and a Hesperonychus tends to silence any possible disbelief), a big cat specialist named Angela Hall, alongside her co-worker, an animal handler by the name of Naomi Burke.

Dr. Hall is friendly, with an infectious smile and a bounce in her step. Dr. Burke (because she  _ is _ a doctor, with a hard-won degree in ecology that had taken her quite some time and that she’s quite proud of) is more reserved, but she’s friendly enough as well, and enjoys working with the lions and discussing theories about the tyrannosaurs with the Nerd Brigade’s animal division, even though she’s technically not a part of it.

Because that’s what’s happened, really: Angie and Naomi are  _ base only, _ and they’re probably going to stay that way, because it frees a hell of a lot of mental space up for Nina and all the rest of the people used to dealing with the lions if they… don’t have to.

Honey has settled in just fine, as well, after a month or so of quarantine and treatment for the injuries along the end of her tail. Gabriel thinks that the splotchy-colored feathers remind him more than a bit of a savannah hawk, all light browns and warm golds that bar and blur into one magnificent animal with surprisingly good camouflage in a forested environment.

Honey’s eyes are a fierce yellow, like paint right out of the tube. She’s full grown, so they probably won’t shift with age like Stratus’s clearly have.

She’s affectionate, now more so than when she’d arrived. They’d placed her in an as-of-yet unused pen off of the side of the tyrannosaur night-time pen once she’d been cleared for introduction, and she warbled affectionately to Stratus for a full day, nosing at the other tyrannosaur who nosed back, just as excited, until they opened up the gates and allowed her through.

Now, a full month after that, Gabriel walks into said pen to two pairs of eyes, one red and one yellow, and two different species of tyrannosaur- both of which are more than happy to see him.

_ “I take it today’s been a slow day?” _ Honey asks, bringing her head up to meet his hand, snuffling softly,  _ “You and Clementine usually stop by often enough, but this is the sixth time today.” _

It is. The forty pound baby- she’s not exactly a hatchling anymore- scuttles across the floor, chasing after a toy. Gabriel begins smoothing down the feathers between Honey’s eyes.

“Maybe I just like hanging out with all of y’all, is that much of a surprise?” he asks. The heavy head of the Albertosaurus is in his hands, now, one large yellow eye staring Gabriel down.

He doesn’t mind being squished, sort of. Honey is being very careful to not pop his organs by putting too much weight on them, at least. The tyrannosaur is affectionate, bizarrely so, though she does get the strangest look of excitement in her eyes at times, like she knows a secret that none of the rest of them do.

_ “It’s not,” _ Stratus rumbles, leaning into the other teenage tyrannosaur’s side so Honey will get her head out of Gabriel’s lap. That’s a surprise, at the very least- that Honey and Stratus are the same age.

They speak most of the time in a halfway dialect between Stratus’s and Honey’s very separate languages. When speaking to Clementine, Stratus speaks exclusively as a Daspletosaurus and Honey exclusively as an Albertosaurus. The baby is already picking things up quickly.

“Hey,” says Nina, settling into the side of the pen. Angie follows her, dark eyes wide with wonder.

Gabriel agrees with the sentiment. Angie and Naomi may not be new here, anymore, but seeing the tyrannosaurs, calm and relaxed and  _ regal _ above all else- well, that never gets old.

“Queens in the wings, ready for war,” he whispers. Stratus stands, and Gabriel and Honey stand with her. The red-eyed tyrannosaur snorts.

_ “You’re due for another anomaly by now,” _ she rumbles,  _ “Now, Honey and I are going to try to find something to pass the time.” _

Gabriel nods, taking his leave when he’s offered it. Clementine follows- she’s still too small to be left with the others without supervision- chirping excitedly and chasing after the heels of various employees. Stratus is right, apparently, because the detector alarm blares practically the second he walks into the bullpen.

It’s another oceanic anomaly. And this one’s a  _ big _ one, too, at least half a mile out to sea.

“I need to figure out how to shift an orca one of these days,” he says, “It would make our lives  _ so much easier. _ ”

“You could have gone while you were in Vancouver picking up Honey,” Nina responds, pushing past him, “We’re not at fault for the fact that it didn’t occur to you.”

No, they’re not. Gabriel sighs, shrugs his shoulders, and grabs a wetsuit just in case.

Maybe he’ll get lucky.

* * *

He does not, in fact, get lucky.

Emma knows this, because Gabriel whines the entire way out to the anomaly, shuddering against the cold. It’s times like this that Emma remembers he’s from Georgia, and that Maria is from Florida, and that she herself is from Oklahoma, and winces in sympathy.

A grey back, too smooth for any local whale, vanishes below the waves. Like a switch has been flicked, Maria and Gabriel are at the side of the boat. Gabriel’s skin at the moment is a grey seal’s, and a large one at that. The fuzzy pinniped turns large dark eyes on the rest of the the team and scoots closer to the water.

“When did you find the time for that and not for something more agile?” Emma finds herself asking, “Weren’t there California Sea Lions back in Canada?”

_ “Point taken,” _ Gabriel replies (and if Emma wasn’t used to hearing something approximating the kid’s voice coming out of various animals, she might have jumped),  _ “If I ever visit Vancouver again, I’ll be sure to obsessively stalk sea lions and orcas.” _

He rolls the rotund seal’s body into the water, and sticks very close to the boat.

_ ‘There’s something big down here, and it’s not happy,’ _ he tells them all, and sends across images- the deep green of the Atlantic Ocean, and a smooth grey and white body that brings forth instinctual fear.

_ ‘Mosasaur?’ _ she asks. Andrew shakes his head, and indicates the readings- the Eocene Epoch.

_ ‘Basilosaurus, maybe,’ _ Zach hums, trailing his fingers in the water,  _ ‘Though it’s much too cold for one here, if it is a Basilosaurus- likely the reason the whale is upset.’ _

_ ‘Get out of the water, and get out of it  _ now, _ ’ _ Emma hisses authoritatively. But the Moondancer doesn’t listen. Through second-handed seal’s vision, they see the creature come closer, and closer, and closer, and-

There’s a  _ texture _ feeling now, aside from the feeling of the bottom of the boat. It’s rubbery, like dolphin’s skin. There’s a sound feeling, too, and the sight that Emma receives is hands on an unfamiliar snout.

The whale moves away, and Gabriel’s human head pops up out of the water, where the rest of them proceed to drag him back onto the boat.

“It’s cool,” he says, staring at the water, “He’s too cold to want to stay here for very long. He was just curious, he’s going home, now.”

There’s something else in his eyes, something other than fear and respect for an animal that could probably eat him in one bite. Emma sighs.

“You figured out how to shift him, didn’t you?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Gabriel replies, “That’s the only reason I stayed in the water that long. I’m probably not going to try it out, though- not here, at least. Too cold.”

“ _ Too cold, _ ” the rest of the team (sans Anna, who’s back at base) agrees.

* * *

Gabriel’s grin lasts quite the while, after they’re back at base. Anna has to grab at the thick dark fur around his hackles and the pale fur of his ruff and pull him back before he takes someone’s legs out. The wolf whines apologetically, tail tucked under his legs, before rolling onto his back and exposing the even darker fur of his belly.

“Oh, get up, dummy,” Anna barks, “We all know you’re trying to look pitiful so nobody will yell at you for getting into the water with an animal big enough to eat you in two bites or less. And it may be working, but you’re not going to mention that part at  _ all _ to  _ anyone _ else.”

Gabriel rolls to stand, and shifts as he does, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie once it pops back into existence. Anna gets that- it’s genuinely easy to shift back and forth, even for multi-forms, when the clothing has been worn often enough to smell familiar, to feel right on skin, which is why Anna remembers to always wear a scarf or something of the sort that smells like her, just in case.

The wetsuit from before ceased to exist, after all- replaced by something grey and speckled that was  _ also _ a wetsuit but definitely also at least partially a sealskin.

Anna’s done that to plenty of clothing over the course of her life. She remembers how it feels to see a nice new jacket turned the color of her fur, how irritating it is to have to do  _ something _ to new clothing she’ll likely shift in if she doesn’t want it to Change because it’s Not Hers.

Gabriel does embroidery on his clothing. Anna sews pockets into hers.

The Moondancer yawns, and heads back towards the tyrannosaur pen like he always does. This time, Anna follows him, sitting in the corner with a tug toy for Clementine to practice with her jaw strength while Gabriel takes a nap in Stratus’s feathers.

At least, she thinks that’s what he’s doing. He could be trying to fight giant dinosaur ticks from all the flailing he’s doing trying to stay stable while the tyrannosaur’s massive chest rises and falls.

So comfortable around an apex predator that he’ll sleep right next to the other’s massive teeth. That takes boldness. Then again, their intermediary is asleep and she hasn’t moved yet despite her own close proximity to Stratus and Honey, so that says something about Anna, too.

As does  _ this _ .

Anna stands, and walks towards the half-awake Albertosaurus, a known man-eater that’s well over a hundred times her weight.

“Hi,” she tells Honey, who slides her bright yellow eyes open to get a better look at Anna. The shape-changer sits in front of the tyrannosaur, and runs her fingers across the scales just above Honey’s eyes, down along her snout, up into the rich golden feathers that give the Albertosaurus her name.

“I hope if you listen to anything I’ve said, you listen to  _ this, _ ” Anna says, and the Albertosaurus snaps awake, regarding her curiously.

“We trust you. Don’t prove us wrong.”

* * *

Lester stares at David, unblinking.

“So, how is tyrannosaur number three settling in?” he asks. David grabs his phone to find the photo, and sends it to the man.

The photo in question has Gabriel leaned against Honey’s head, Stratus leaned against her. The Moondancer is animated, eyes shining as magic swirls around them and he tells his little story. Clementine sits on her sister’s head and watches with interest, while Charlie is tucked into the kid’s side, asleep.

He doesn’t know why Lester would bother to suck in a breath of surprise, or why his fingers shudder.

“Who is this?” Lester asks, pointing at Gabriel.

“Gabriel Azose, our archosauripath. I told you about him, remember?” David says, leaning forwards, eyes narrowed. Lester snorts and shifts his tie, before casting his eyes around his office like he doesn’t quite trust whoever’s near it with this.

“You didn’t say his  _ name _ . I think I know  _ exactly _ why both of our teams have an archosauripath, and from what you’ve told me of yours, nobody’s going to be happy with the answer.”

“I don’t follow,” David replies, “Mind explaining exactly what’s going on?”

“Is the brat a Moondancer, by any chance?” Lester asks tiredly.

“Yes, why?”

“Because  _ ours is too _ ,” the man replies. David receives a photo of his own, and understands exactly why Lester is so unbalanced by this.

Gabriel and Shoshannah Azose look so similar it’s impossible to dispute they’re related. With the other pieces of information, well-

“Gabriel mentioned he had cousins in the UK his branch of the family didn’t talk to,” David finds himself saying, “That’s probably-”

“That’s probably them, then,” Lester sighs, “Let’s not tell them yet. We’re both still waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to Helen Cutter, it’s not a good time to drop a bomb like that one onto their heads.”

“So  _ when _ ?”

“I’ll send her over to the States sometime soon, with the excuse of checking on your tyrannosaurs, whenever we deem it safe to do so- hopefully sooner rather than later, I’d hate to do it when the administration switches hands.”

“Right, so I just, what? Wait for the fallout?” David asks. He  _ knows _ his team, he  _ knows _ this kid, and he  _ knows _ that it’s either going to end very well or with blood on the walls.

“I do suppose that’s all we  _ can _ do.”

* * *

Gabriel flies into Vancouver for the second time six weeks later, with a single goal in mind- studying orcas enough to shift them. He’s considered on loan to Project Magnet until this goal is realized, which is why he talks down three more pterosaurs and a Carcharodontosaurus before the end of the trip. But it’s worth it.

Gabriel sinks into the cold, cold water, and watches.

They’re social, friendly. They’re quick and knowledgeable, with bright eyes and sharp minds. Gabriel finds himself shifting before he even knows he’s ready, too wrapped up in the sensation of  _ hello-play-friend _ , spinning though the water as quickly as the rest of them.

He’s back in Boston before long, but he rolls into the water with gusto, now, ready and able to search for what they need, even when they need him miles away on land.

There’s still the tug, keeping him tied to shore or to the earth when he leaves his human shape behind and  _ soars _ as high and far as he can, but he’s learned to work with it, now.

They trust him to return each time, and return he will, but he enjoys his freedom. It’s no longer a hand around a collar, but his hands and theirs around a rope. He is not tied, he’s holding on.

Light filters through the feathers of his newest shape, a Northern Gannet. Gabriel feels the familiar humming of a request in the back of his head, and begins the flight back to shore.

He is a sky-child, in truth- sky and sea, both, but there’s no reason he cannot be tied to the land just as much.

* * *

“You know,” David says, watching his living room fill up with dinosaurs and humans and mutants alike, “We could have had a movie night somewhere with a bigger couch.”

“ _ You _ have the biggest couch,” Maria retorts, “It’s not like Nina’s and mine is any bigger-”

“Whoa, hang on,” Anna says, turning off the trailer everyone’s been watching. In the kitchen, the popcorn is seasoned and put away while Emma leaps out into the living room, staring at Maria.

“Since when has that been a thing?” the detective asks through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Oh, Maria and I became roommates a couple of months ago when I was kicked out, why?” Nina asks. David sees the twinge of disappointment in Maria’s eyes, and hides a grin.

“So you’ve been living together for…”

“Nearly seven months now, yeah,” Maria cuts in, throwing an arm around Nina, who squawks irritably.

David leaves the room as his phone buzzes.

It’s Lester.

“Yeah?” he asks, “What’s happened?”

“Helen Cutter’s broken into the ARC,” Lester says, “If it would be possible, next time you see her, take care of her more permanently?”

David swallows past the guilt rising in his throat, threatening to choke him. He hangs up on Lester, and scrolls down, searches for the phone number of the professor he’s now got confirmation is his foster son’s aunt.

“Here goes nothing,” he says, watching as the team discusses the inaccuracies of Jurassic Park over caramel covered popcorn.

The professor doesn’t answer, unfortunately, but the man who does knows  _ far _ too much.

Yes, this is definitely the right number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this, ch12, and speaking of strange, sos for short, haha i'm *sooooo* funny, (not), are today's updates, then i'll probably go dormant for a little bit before popping up again as I usually do.


	12. side-eyeing your relatives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> zanna sokol shows up for like three months and then ditches and absolutely nobody is happy about it. except for gabe bc she can keep her mouth shut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, gabe's getting trained, at least?

“Listen to me,” David says, “I’m not going to wait another how many months, it’s already been two since I tried calling your aunt and the guilt about hiding it is starting to eat at me, here.”

Gabriel sits forwards earnestly.

“You talked to my aunt?”

“Her boyfriend answered the phone, but he works with the UK team, along with-”

“My first cousin, whoever that may be,” Gabriel says nodding along. David frowns, and Gabriel shrugs.

“Mom told me that half the reason she and Aunt Rebecca were arguing was that Aunt Rebecca wasn’t willing to deal with the fact that her husband was, and I quote, ‘a literal garbage fire’. I hadn’t been born yet, so I can’t speak to the discourse, but-”

“Husband in question left about thirteen years ago, stopped visitation about eleven years ago.”

“Oh,  _ ouch. _ So, what, you’re telling me because-”

“Because you have a significant amount of family in the states- second cousins and more distant, for the most part, but-”

“I’m not leaving, Dad,” Gabriel says, patting David’s hand reassuringly. David smiles softly at the word choice, and continues.

“If you want to interact with them, it’s your choice. Doctor Azose the Younger is an inevitability, here, considering your similar roles on relatively connected teams, but if you want to talk to anyone else-”

Gabriel freezes, and smiles. He’s starting to tear up.

“I think- I think I’d like to get to know them.”

“Right, then,” David says, “I have an application to add your second cousin, a Lieutenant Zanna Sokol, to the roster. I figured I’d ask you first, see if you were okay with it.”

“Let her know, beforehand,” Gabriel replies, “I- I think it might not be a good fit, from what I know of that side of the family, but it might be nice to have another telepath on board, even if she does show up late to this party.”

“Nine’s a lucky number,” David replies with a grin, “A very lucky number, indeed.”

“We already have ten. Angie and Naomi make ten.”

“Nine in the network and eight in the field team, you know what i mean.”

“Thirteen’s a lucky number, too,” Gabriel says. David narrows his eyes, and Gabriel narrows his back.

“Thirteen for the thirteen atributes of- okay, at some point we’re all going to sing Echad Mi Yodea and you’re going to be a part of that, and you are going to understand what I talk about when I’m talking numbers. I can’t be left with only the Professors who know what I’m talking about.”

* * *

Zanna joins them, and Zanna joins the Field Team, and Zanna’s wolf shape looks exactly like a bigger version of the rapidly growing wolf shape of Gabriel’s- maybe a little redder in the fur. His could bleach blonde, everyone’s pretty sure Zanna’s would bleach orange.

The other Moondancer hooks into the network smoothly. It’s plainly obvious, the difference between a talented pup and a skilled grown Moondancer, because she smooths over half the pup’s rough edges in his technique within a month. She’s not going to be here for long- she makes it clear up front that her arrangement is likely going to be temporary (though she’ll keep her mouth shut unless otherwise requested by the rest of the group), and that she’ll try to find a good enough replacement that will make their nine click into place.

In the meantime, she runs with their youngest, teaching him how to be a good Moondancer, smoothing over any rough patches with a warm smile and a wink. It aches, when she leaves after another three months, but she slips from the network as easily as she’d slipped in, and leaves them stronger than ever, claws and teeth and one sharp, efficient machine.

Anna thinks that she clicked just a little left of what they need, that she might have been just right if she’d made an effort, but that they need another member of their field team, a member of the Nerd Brigade, not yet another addition to the security team. Gabriel goes off to college- sort of (it is still the spring semester, after all, but he’s pushing through classes as fast as he can go), ready at the drop of a hat to join them with whatever they need. He’s seventeen, now, and Anna’s gotten into at least five arguments with his professors over the fact that  _ yes,  _ in fact, he  _ is _ needed for something with them and can’t, in fact, be dragged back into class and hit with a reprimand.

“We’re kind of a specialized version of animal control,” she explains apologetically. Anomalies have settled to a once a week or once ever two weeks occurrence, usually, besides the regulars that tend to open and close on their own whims. They all find  _ those _ to be a pain, but nobody’s willing to kick up a fuss, and so they take up the new suggestions from the British team and lock them when they can. Suddenly, there are a lot fewer anomalies to deal with.

There’s been a few dozen, now, from times before life began, anomalies that spit fire and poison from within them. They get locked first, and get kept locked for as long as anyone can manage them.

“I’m glad you didn’t go to Harvard,” she whispers, “I think we’d have a harder time getting you to our job if it was Harvard.”

“I didn’t even  _ get in _ to Harvard,” Gabriel replies, “It wasn’t exactly my  _ choice. _ ”

“Zip it, we’re driving to Philly.”

* * *

There’s a Triassic anomaly in Philly, this week, a late Triassic, too, with a massive mostly bipedal crocodilian, that Zachary cheerfully identifies as a Postosuchus. Gabriel cracks his back from the strain of a long drive and goes straight into arguing with the thing. The large female doesn’t seem to be in much of a bickering mood, but she does con Gabriel into removing about five reptile ticks in various places along her body. Gabriel places them into specimen jars as they’ve been told, and the anomaly is sealed off once the Postosuchus is through.

“I’m going to head back to class and hope my professor doesn’t scream at me,” the kid says tiredly, “Don’t wait up for me.”

Anna, who is responsible for getting him back to class, does so, before staring at the specimen jars full of ancient archosaur blood fattened ticks.

“We could Jurassic Park this,” she says, poking one of the jars. The lab tech, a young brunette with a bright smile, turns around.

“I know, right! Look at this!” she says, turning to the results, and begins to explain. Anna shrugs her shoulders, then frowns.

“Those things are dead, right?”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’re very dead. Can’t have a healthy group of tyrannosaurs if they’ve got a tick infestation, no?” she asks. She’s British, and her… her face glitches.

* * *

Helen Cutter tries to give their tyrannosaurs reptile ticks. Fortunately, Nina’s Knowing mixed with her instinct as a medical professional keeps that plan from coming to fruition.

Unfortunately, the close call means they’re sending all of the reptiles into quarantine for the next three weeks and giving all of them routine tick checks, especially since Stratus and Honey spend so much of their time outside.

Nina bullies a few people into helping them make proper tick prevention for the massive creatures, though many are released back to their standard divisions post memory wipe. Gabriel runs messages between the tyrannosaurs, and hunts in the wet. He’s given tick preventative, too, like most Moondancers get, though fortunately, they don’t have to create a formula for him. Nina says this loudly more than once, eyes narrowed at a sheepish-looking Charlie.

Gabriel’s as tall at the hackles as a Shetland Pony, now, and still getting taller. He’s getting heavier, too, but the fur on his head is still velvety soft, and he still thumps his tail when her fingers get to The Spot behind his ear.

It’s easy to show affection to their youngest team member this way, when he’s on four legs instead of two and doesn’t mind rolling over to show his belly. It’s more difficult, when he’s in a self-embroidered ARC sweatshirt and staring footage in an attempt to see what he’d done wrong last time, but they all still do it, leaning into his side or tucking his head under their chins. He’s always happy to have it, although sometimes they can tip him too far and end up with a teary-eyed Moondancer who’s… a little overwhelmed, to say the least.

It’s been good, though. It seems, for the most part, that Helen doesn’t care about them, that she’s got old beef with the British team and they have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Which makes the phone calls strange, because their reactions to Helen are the exasperated sort, while the British team freaks out more and more and more.

Nina rolls her scarf around her neck, and just in time, too. The detector blares for the first time in a week, and it’s in Boston, too.

* * *

This one’s Late Cretaceous. Nina knows this one is Late Cretaceous because there’s a  _ Suskityrannus _ racing across the pews of the Old North Church. Nina resists the urge to take a photo, and instead watches in silence as Gabriel herds the little thing back through the anomaly, and helps set up the locking device. There’s not much they can do, at this point, besides sit and wait for their next call. That is, until a  _ Jeyawati _ shows its face, and it turns out they haven’t been thorough enough in a sweep of the building to notice all of the animals.

This one gets shoved through in short order, too, though they do have to open and reseal the anomaly another three or so times exclusively to ferry various animals across. Gabriel groans, and heads back to the base once they’re  _ sure _ nothing else is going to come through and it’s safe to go home and go back to the movie marathon of choice or something else of the like. Honey whines when she realizes she’d missed out on snack time with the hadrosaurs, but Nina glares at the Albertosaurus until she shuts up and takes the very good food they’ve so graciously provided for her.

“She’s pitching a fit?” Gabriel asks, wrapping a scarf around his neck. He’s never quite settled in, they don’t think. It’s  _ early summer, _ of all times, and he still hides under layers when the air conditioning gets too cold.

“Yeah, she  _ was,” _ Nina says, before bouncing back over to the infirmary. She spies Maria in the hall, and snags a quick kiss, which gets clapping and whistling from the assembled members of the team.

Maria blushes like a fool. Nina grins, and keeps on walking.

* * *

Their next anomaly is a one-off surprise, an Early Cretaceous in southern Virginia, which results in grumbling when they arrive and genuinely pleased surprise when it turns out to be a few ankylosaurs that don’t mind being asked for photos. Anna now has about half a dozen photos of her and random ankylosaurs on her phone. If she was worried about hacks, she might have deleted them, but she isn’t, because anyone who would dare to hack the ARC’s personnel is someone she’d like to meet one day, so she can punch them in the face and threaten them into never doing anything of the sort ever again.

Anna has her people, now, her little pack of eight, maybe sixteen if she counts the rest of the support staff. Maybe more, if she counts more members of the ARC alongside them.

Anna wonders what it would be like, to meet the UK team. She’s not sure she wants to know, honestly- they might be great, they might be objectively terrible. Some of them seem friendly enough- she’s listened in on Andrew’s calls to the Temple kid, has heard enough about the UK team’s boss, Lester, from David to get an idea of what  _ he’s _ like, has heard that their field team is even more scattered and amateur than their own.

Anna doesn’t exactly know how that’s possible, but she can make guesses- they’ve got a captain, a well-decorated detective, a sergeant, two professors, a very well-respected veterinarian, the Major himself, and only one theoretically under-qualified member that makes up for it with his ability to work with the rest of the team.

Communication is instinctual, now. Anna wakes up to friendly voices in her head, suggestions on breakfast or where to meet up for the day or requests on how to do any particular math problem. They’re her people, now.

She can roll with that.

* * *

New York still doesn’t fit right around her shoulders, Emma thinks. She’s been here well over a hundred times, though usually on police business, chasing after some perp or another. But Boston is home, and before that, Oklahoma City, and there’s still a piece of her that whispers to watch her back on these streets. Less so, now, when others are watching it for her, but she’s had too much experience with the absolute worst that New York has had to offer and too little experience with the best to ever truly be comfortable here.

It’s practically impossible, now that she knows what’s stalking these streets, knows what might very well have been released. The anomaly is a Pliocene one, closer than they ever really tend to be, and that brings forth a whole host of possibilities.

The best they can hope for, when it comes to large, dangerous animals that could have made their way through, is  _ Titanis. _ If there are Terror Birds in Lower Manhattan, then maybe they can be reasoned with. According to the UK team, at least, terror birds are relatively easy to negotiate with, which is a surprisingly comforting thought when Emma thinks about it at all.

Unfortunately, they’re not nearly that lucky. Emma wishes for terror birds or dinosaurs when all is said and done, staring at the massive, sort of cat-like thing that’s killed three people already.

It’s got pockets for its saber teeth. Emma pulls her braids back into one low ponytail, and stares the barbourofelid (or, at least, that’s what the paleontology nerds have been calling it) down, waiting for someone else to take the opening she’s so graciously provided for them.

Fortunately, she works with a mind reader and six other people who are connected to her own head, and someone drugs the cat before it can cause any other trouble.

“Those things are  _ weird, _ ” Gabriel agrees as they shove the massive cat through the anomaly. It honestly doesn’t even look quite like a cat. They lock it easily, after searching around for anything else that’s come through, and coming up with nothing. Gabriel makes a few dozen new friends out of a flock of feral pigeons that he’s feeding in exchange for information.

“Dad suggested it,” he says, not even caring that every one of them can hear he’s finally admitted he sees Hewitt as a father figure, “Heard something about my counterpart doing the same thing. Figured I’d try it, and New York pigeons are a little bit infamous.”

One of the pigeons coos, hopping up onto his foot. Gabriel leans down into a squat.

“Hey,” he says, “You don’t have very good medical care, and if I’m not careful, you could get me really sick. And if I’m really sick, I stop bringing bread.”

The threat seems to work, because the pigeons glare at each other suspiciously as if all of them aren’t disease carriers all at once.

Emma nods at the pigeons, and tries her best to look intimidating. She gets her lunch stolen for her efforts.

New York City pigeons really are the mean sort, huh.

* * *

If he’s being honest, the next future anomaly they get- just north of Boston where they are, convenient, that- is a bizarre one. Gabriel also thinks it’s weird that none of them have been on the ‘wrong’ side of an anomaly, though, so when the giant mouse squeaks its way through, Gabriel escorts it back, wondering at the lushly forested other side, where theirs is an abandoned warehouse.

It’s beautiful. Strange and glorious and oh-so-bizarre, but beautiful.

Figures that Helen would show up eventually, a strange look on her face. She gets chased back out before long, but the beauty of the giant mouse and the calm of the forest of the future is mentioned. Helen has a strange look to her face. Maybe, just maybe, she’s never gone forwards far enough to properly appreciate what the future can hold. Gabriel knows of at least five different future anomalies, now- the near-ubiquitous Future Predators that they’d gotten far less warning about than they probably should have, the weird mer-people that the UK team mentioned, the Future Fungus that David had warned them about in the most recent of his reports, the giant penguin seeking world domination of several months ago, and these sweet, massive rodents, with sharp teeth and soft eyes and even softer fur.

Gabriel thinks that maybe, just maybe, the other team’s gotten too far into solving the mysteries of the anomalies to sit back and appreciate the work that they do in working with the creatures, saving people when they can and resolving issues peacefully.

They haven’t added anyone to the Menagerie since the cubs, who are still growing quickly- at seven months, eight soon, they’re nearing the size of their mothers. The Spice Girls, as they’ve been referring to the cubs (the Spice Rack when they’re feeling particularly exhausted) entertain Angie and Naomi to no end.

Gabriel’s glad. Things might actually be going well.

David calls him into the office that very morning, a resigned look on his face.

“I’ve gotten Sokol to run interference so we don’t have to be the ones to break the news,” David says, “But your cousin is on her way. I just thought you might want to know.”

Gabriel blinks.

“You wouldn’t be this nervous if it was just a puppy playdate. What else is going on here, Dad?”

David narrows his eyes.   
“There’s been- the UK team was disbanded, yesterday. They’re missing three members, and one of their still-present team members is gravely injured. It’s- she’s going to be fragile, Gabriel. Be nice.”

“I always am,” Gabriel replies, “Even when I probably shouldn’t be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might be last update for a while, i'm all in on birdie again which might result in a bunch of chapters for birdie and next to none for tvok... again.


	13. after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *exaggerated gasp* familiar faces! anyways, these fics are going to go at least up until the end of season five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, this took... a while

There’s a low, rumbling roar floating upwards from where it begins, by the river. Nobody listens particularly hard- it’s Albany. It’s not like there are giant predators ready to snatch children when it suits them.

That’s a mistake, that they’ve made, though fortunately, the Beast does not snatch any children away from them. It takes adults, and the bodies are not found until the Beast is long gone, an already fading memory.

What they do remember, after the fact, is the shattered-glass light, the shining in the response team’s eyes, the black jackets and the logo and the way that when the Beast roared, the tallest among the response team stepped forwards-

And roared  _ back. _

* * *

“So, eighteen, huh?” Andrew asks, waltzing back into the bullpen with the most ridiculous sunburn Gabriel has ever seen in his entire life. He wonders if Zach- who has a nice tan instead of his melanin deficient husband’s tomato-red sunburn- dragged him out on a dig or five while they were out of town. He thinks they said something about going to the beach and using their vacation time up, but here they are- with weeks still left to go if they want to use them.

“I’ve been eighteen for  _ months _ , now,” Gabriel growls in reply, but doesn’t complain when the Professor ruffles his hair. Auggie did the same, and so did Angie, and Nina, and Naomi, and his dad, and everyone’s not even here yet. It’s like his hair being a bit longer is some sort of magnet for people who want a good luck charm. Clementine can’t get done messing with it, either, and the tyrannosaur is more than two years old and over a hundred pounds, now.

She hasn’t lost the orange baby coat, though, which is nice, though if Gabriel couldn’t see Stratus’s bright red eyes (and hadn’t seen the ‘normal’ coat of a sub-adult or adult Daspletosaurus), he would assume the big tyrannosaur is anerythristic in addition to being partially leucistic.

“Yeah, but you were barely sixteen when you showed up here, and now look at you! Walking around with an adult driver’s license and working on your Bachelor’s. We’re proud of you, kid, let us show it.”

Gabriel flushes, embarrassed.

“It’s not that much-”

“Well, I mean, you’re a part of the carpool rotation, now. And we’re definitely going to make you drive to the next anomaly. Rite of initiation. There’s seven of us in the field team, we can still fit in one car, and therefore, whoever just got their driver’s license gets to drive.”

“But Zach-”

“Was confined to driving duty for a month once he got his. C’mon, kid, you know the rules.”

“Aww, Andrew, don’t kick up a fuss about this,” Maria says, leaning on Gabriel’s shoulder. She’s been fidgety, lately- Gabriel knows why, but he’s been sworn into silence on the subject of The Ring. Nina walks past, a grin on her face, and Gabriel doesn’t see why until his eyes flicker down to her hands.

“You finally did it!” he cheers, pointing at the Captain, who nearly falls over when he spins around. She claps her hands over her mouth to muffle her laugh, and nods.

“We didn’t want to make it a big  _ thing,  _ y’know, so we’re planning a courthouse ceremony, not the whole traditional wedding kind of thing-”

“Fair, understandable,” Andrew says. Maria grins.

“Who officiated yours?”

“She died ten years ago,” Andrew says, before grinning, “No, not really. She’s still doing just fine, and she wanted to officiate her son and son-in-law’s wedding, too, when they got married back in 2011, but she didn’t get there fast enough. I think she might have married us as a hint to them that she could do it for them, too, but. Y’know. She’s also a federal appeals justice, and I think her license for Massachusetts weddings expired, but-”

“Are we invited?” David asks, gliding through the group towards one of the few desks with an extra chair, grinning all the while.

“Yes, actually,” Nina says, “We’ve kind of only got the one group of mutual friends, and none of us actually know that many people outside of work. I mean, I’ve still got a couple of people. Maria’s family is pretty great, but mine’s a total garbage fire, so we’re  _ not _ inviting them- they’re not bigoted, or anything, just-”

“Chaotic?” Emma offers.

“Interesting?” Zach tries, rolling in on an office chair.

“Fucking stupid?” Anna asks, leaning over her desk with a grin.

“The last one. Thanks, Anna. Anyways, you all are invited, we’re debating dates and courthouse vs small traditional, at the moment, and yes, David, you can help with dress shopping, and you too Frank, heaven knows nobody else is going to give me an honest opinion.”

Just to interrupt them, it seems, the detector screams. Gabriel claps his hands on his ears, and glares at the thing.

“We have  _ got _ ,” he yells, “To turn the volume on that thing down!”

“Hey, it gets everyone’s attention!” Andrew defends in response.

* * *

Gabriel hates getting through long drives. His legs cramp up, there never seems to be enough space in the driver’s seat, even when he has the person behind him squished between their seat and his own-

That’s actually pretty much it. But this  _ is _ tradition, which means he’s stuck on a three hour drive to Albany because nobody wants to swing for the dinosaur team to get any faster means of transportation.

“We really need to split the Northeast team into three,” Andrew says an hour into their drive, “We can’t keep showing up hours later than we need to.”

“We’re the only team we’ve got,” Gabriel counters, “And we’re stretched thin, sure, but it’s better this than trying to cover the entirety of the States. Did you know the UK team is trying to make their detectors able to find anomalies all over the world? Shosh told me about it.”

“What in heaven’s name do they think they’re going to with that?” Emma asks with a snort, “Because I am certainly not taking care of any anomalies outside the Northeast unless I’m already  _ there _ , thank you very much, and I highly doubt they’d be able to show up to say, Southern India, in time.”

“There’s already a team in India, actually,” Andrew replies, “A couple, really. Can’t exactly run a single-base operation in a country well over ten times the size our territory covers.”

“Oh. They any good?” Anna asks from the backseat.

“ _ Really _ good,” Andrew replies, “We were there over vacation, you know, just to talk-”

“I  _ knew _ you were doing work!” Gabriel shouts, “I knew you’d think ‘peace, no dinosaurs’ and absolutely riot, and that you’d both end up bugging some other version of the ARC until they let you meddle!”

“Actually, they gave us a lot of instructions on their own findings. They’ve started on this anomaly tracking device, too- looks a bit weird, but it might actually work.”

“Like the artefact the Brits were going nuts over?”

“They’re modeling it after that as a joke.”

“Oh,” Gabriel says, before grinning, “ _ Neat. _ ”

“Yeah, it is pretty great. They’re way ahead of us on most things. I’m not jumping ship, obviously, but they have some pretty sweet tech over there.”

* * *

By the time they make it to Albany, there’s already an argument going on between two unusually large allosaurs.

Gabriel’s not sure if they’re  _ Allosaurus _ proper- they kind of seem too big for it, if he’s being completely honest- but they’re softly fuzzed, pale grey, with dark stripes across their backs and red across the scales on their faces.

And one of them is yelling at the other at the top of his lungs.

_ “What do you think you’re doing?” _ the older of the pair asks its packmate,  _ “We don’t fuck around with this shit! You know what the little things this side of The Glow are capable of! Do you want to get yourself killed? You don’t eat the little fleshy things- they’re not good food besides!” _

Everyone else probably only hears roaring, but Gabriel resists the urge to laugh at how the smaller allosaur is getting chewed out. Of course, the anger here suggests that the smaller has eaten someone already, which is really, really,  _ really _ not good, but he’ll take his amusement where it’s given.

“Excuse me,” he says, and neither allosaur pays attention. Gabriel huffs, and stands up to his full height- barely up to either of these massive creatures’ jaws.

“ _ Excuse me,” _ he repeats, louder and more forcefully, shoving as much Influence as he can into the words. Both allosaurs snap to him immediately. The smaller looks cowed, which is a surprise considering how large both creatures are, but Gabriel’s scolded tyrannosaurs, before. Neither member of this pair frightens him.

But the bigger one…

There’s recognition, in those eyes, at the way he talks, at the way he stands. Either they’ve messed up points in the timeline, again (David’s never going to tell the British team about a Helen who was fresh to future anomalies, completely unused to seeing such things- she is  _ their past, _ and they will not meddle. Besides, they couldn’t’ve caught her, anyways), or- or this one’s familiar with his cousin.

From the way the theropod looks at him, and the niggling reminder in the back of his head that Shoshannah  _ had _ , indeed, mentioned an allosaur before- he’s going to assume the latter.

The allosaur snorts, and takes a step back, uneasy. Gabriel takes a step forwards in response, then another, then another, then another, crowding into the animal’s space and making it stare back at him with unsettling grey eyes.

“I think you know you’re not supposed to be here,” he says, voice reasoned and quiet, “And I think you know that I can hurt you just as bad as you can hurt me, if given the time for it, because those are  _ my _ people back there, and I don’t stand for them getting hurt.”

_ “Don’t want any trouble,” _ the big allosaur says, and Gabriel realizes with a start that a lot of the weight and size he’s been attributing to this one simply isn’t there,  _ “Followed my sister out here, was trying to get her back. And what do you mean? You’re  _ tiny. _ ” _

“Not that small,” Gabriel jokes, “And I’m not always this, either.”

The pale grey eyes widen as much as they can within scales. Gabriel trusts that the theropod is smart enough to send himself back through the anomaly with the little sister in tow, but that trust may very well be misplaced. It seems to be, because the younger female lunges for his people.

Gabriel feels shaggy feathers replacing his skin, and grows several tons in a moment, bigger and meaner than this carnosaur could ever even hope to be.

Stratus’s adult coloration feels like life against his skin. He drops her head instead of his own, raises her tail instead of his, and  _ roars, _ a sound that can carry for miles.

The allosaur freezes in her tracks, and stares between him, her brother, and him again, in the dove grey and pearl white and striking blue feathers that Stratus has given him to wear when he needs.

He snorts, threatening. His skull can crush them worse than they could ever hope to scratch him through the feather coat.

He takes a step forwards, blood-red eyes narrowed. The allosaurs take a look at each other, and then look back to him, as if Gabriel actually has any answers to the secrets of the universe. The Moondancer resists the urge to sigh, and instead channels his irritation into intimidation, fluffing up the feathers along his spine and letting out a low snarl that rattles the buildings around them in their very foundations.

_ “Before you do something stupid,” _ Gabriel says,  _ “I’d like to remind you that I don’t take nearly as much damage in this shape as you might think.” _

He’s lying- there aren’t any special attributes that make the Daspletosaurus that  _ he _ is any more durable than Stratus or a full-grown version of Clementine, but this seems to sink in well enough. The smaller turns tail and scrams, the larger soon after her.

Gabriel shifts back once the anomaly is locked, and graciously accepts the offerings of food he receives from the rest of the team.

“You looked like you were about to body-slam her,” Nina says with a snort, “All in favor of Gabriel not receiving driving duty for giving us that kick-ass video of him versus two allosaurs, raise your hands, please.”

Six hands go up. Gabriel smiles, and ducks his head.

“Aww, you don’t have to-”

“Oh, we don’t? Then driving duty it is, kiddo. Once we don’t have to worry about you passing out from hunger at the wheel, we’ll head out,” Emma barks, patting him on the head.

“We need a better way to do this,” he groans.

“Yeah, no shit, but this is how it works for now,” Maria replies.

“If anyone can figure out a non location specific teleporter that can take seven people, please tell me,” Andrew hums, “I do not want to have to deal with a Boston to Virginia drive more than once a year because someone was too cheap to order us plane tickets.”

“Just be glad most of our anomalies are within an hour of Boston,” Gabriel replies, “Can you imagine if we got a Maine alert and then, on the drive home, a  _ Virginia _ alert?”

Everyone shudders at the thought.

“Don’t even  _ joke _ about that,” says Emma.

* * *

Of course, because they have tempted fate, they get an alert to Portland, Maine, which necessitates a drive, and then, immediately after finishing up, an alert in Richmond, Virginia. Fortunately for them, David does, in fact, show mercy on their poor backs from time to time, and orders them plane tickets last minute.

“I wish we had a private jet,” Andrew says as they make their way to the Richmond anomaly, “Or, at the very least, we could call in for these kinds of things- have little bases with a few small teams all over, and have them report back to us for anything specific, you know? I know you can teleport based on specific coordinates-”

This is pointed at Gabriel, who nods-

“But you can’t take anyone else with you, and too many jumps in a day is bad news.”

“I can take one person with me, if I’m rested and not hungry,” Gabriel replies, “And that’s over long jumps. I can do more if I can see where we’re going, or if someone else in the network is already there.”   
“Yeah, but that’s not helpful, because how often are you rested and not hungry? You need at least five thousand calories a  _ day _ , pup, I’ve seen the way you eat,” Anna points out.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Gabriel groans, and shifts, and lunges for the nearest Future Predator, tossing it through the anomaly without much care. He’s in the allosaur form, now- the male, specifically, because he doesn’t want to give them the purchase of Stratus’s thicker feathers.

They lock the anomaly not long after that, without anything having come through. Gabriel frowns, though, remembers what Shoshannah said, and instructs them to unlock it.

He goes through.

* * *

This one- this place, this terrible, terrible place, smells awful.

It’s his first reaction to it, in his wolf skin, with a muffling spell in place, eyes out for future predators and bugs and his cousin’s pack.

He can still feel his own, buzzing across the back of his mind, concerned. It’s the exact place that Shoshannah described- with a locked anomaly in front of a cliff, and his own on the top of a building. He can smell smoke, something recent, and looks down.

There are no humans here, he knows that much. It seems to flicker, between this place and another, more horrible by far.

Gabriel shakes himself, still unsettled by whatever has happened here, and looks around again, eyes narrowed. There are no Future Predators coming for him now, in this heat and disgusting scent, none that can hear him. Perhaps they see the absence of sound, the deep pit he’s created, and feel fear.

Gabriel bares sharp teeth, and snarls out a promise that none but him can hear.

* * *

There is something strange afoot, by the time he returns, glad the future dust had not clung to him. Something bizarre is buzzing at the edges of his senses, something somehow right, decent, the kind of feeling that’s like warmth of the sun on his fur on a cold day, when it sneaks over the horizon in the woods and he closes his eyes and it sinks so far down it touches skin, makes the darks warm to the touch against the cold of the rest of the world.

It’s the feeling of clicking into place, things being right and good, the feeling of comfort, someone else’s comfort. There’s grief, too, but it’s smaller, hiding behind the good and the right, a little dart of pain against a sea of  _ at least I got this much. _

Gabriel shifts his skins, and races up the nearest hill. It’s dark, now, and the sun he feels on his fur isn’t his, and the air is clean, not just left of smoggy, with the smell of pine and maple in the air, alongside deer and wild boar that shouldn’t be here and tyrannosaur and lion and coyote.

He tips his head back, and sings into the wind, sings of reconciliation, of those scattered to the winds coming home, home, home. The feeling of relief and grief all in one is familiar, and it reverberates around them all, around all that hold Leah Sokol’s blood in their veins.

He knows he isn’t the only one singing, and  _ wonders _ \- wonders how many other heads are tipped back with him, eyes of gold and orange and green and yellow closed as they sing with each other, despite the distance.

That is how he knows that two of Shoshannah’s missing pack have come home.

Nothing more complicated than simple instinct, and the binds that hold them together, binds suggested and chosen with open arms.

He sings for them, and for his own, too, may they never be separated.

He doesn’t think he could take it, if they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm publishing this, next chapter of Birdie, and true north all at the same time, btw.


	14. singer of the hills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> y'all get to meet Jeremy Cohen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. this took awhile

He’s not sure, exactly, when they end up squished behind the barricade, but Andrew’s  _ definitely _ sure that today didn’t start out this way.

In fact, the day started out rather well- or, as well as things can be, all things considered. They’ve heard a few things- chief among them that two out of the three missing persons they’re supposed to keep an eye out for are back where they’re supposed to be- and they’re glad for them, they really are, but this isn’t the time.

Andrew  _ really  _ doesn’t know when it went wrong.

* * *

He stops in the middle of the bullpen, and stares at the mound of fur blocking his path. Gabriel is massive, now, but that doesn’t mean he’s impossible to move. Andrew flicks the pony-sized wolf in the snout.

“Just because you can teleport yourself here, now, doesn’t mean you get to sleep in the bullpen,” he tells the college (and soon to be PhD, he’s gotten confirmation to go right from Bachelor’s to his PhD studies and Andrew couldn’t be prouder) student, who huffs, stands, and cracks his back. His full lupine size has gotten ridiculously huge in the last few years- the answer to the eternal question of ‘where is all that food going’, Andrew supposes. The kid’s already nearly six and a half feet tall and is easily the size of a pony in his wolf form, he’d better not grow any more, or Andrew will start feeling like the incredible shrinking man.

_ “But I don’t  _ wanna _ move, _ ” the Moondancer whines, trying to look his most pitiful. Andrew grabs a fistful of thick fur and shoves. Gabriel groans, and shakes out his fur as he stands, shrinking, bones cracking back into their human shape. A familiar, well-worn Tufts sweatshirt with pockets sewn on by hand takes the place of his fur.

The familiar detector alarm blares. Zach rolls back from where he’s sitting in his office chair and groans exaggeratedly, grading nearly spilling onto the floor. With a flick of Andrew’s hand, it’s all back in the neat pile it was in the first place.

“Cambridge,” Emma says, grabbing her jacket, “Spilled out a couple dozen Civil War soldiers. Anyone who works exclusively with the animals is off, today. Zach, go back to grading. Andrew, you can stay here, too.”

“No, I’m going,” Andrew says, “It’s one of the recurring anomalies, right?”

“Right,” Emma says, pointing at him with her hat, which she then places on her head, “Gabriel, Maria, Maxie, you’re with us. Frank and Sam are already there, they were in Cambridge for who knows what reason.”

Gabriel sighs.

“Are they causing trouble again?”

“It’s the same people, of course they’re causing trouble again,” Emma replies, “But someone else came through with them, according to Frank, at least, and this one’s far more interesting.”

Gabriel stiffens, and turns, eyes wide.

“Do you want me to try to make a jump over there now?” he asks. Emma nods, and Gabriel disappears in a whirl of blue and the cloying smell of the cinnamon bun he’d stolen from the break room.

* * *

No, this is definitely  _ not _ normal. The two young women and the man that have come through look back to where they’ve been. Gabriel tracks them the second they dart away, but they’re fast, and the young man clearly knows how to distract a tracker’s nose- they dart downtown, quick on their feet. Gabriel loses them quickly, and Anna isn’t any better, despite her sharper nose.

_ “This isn’t going to get us anywhere,” _ the hound growls, scratching at the ground,  _ “We might as well go back.” _

There’s a buzzing, around Gabriel’s communication collar.

_ “There’s been another alert,” _ one of the IT techs- Myra, he thinks her name is-  _ “A couple blocks from where you are, now. It’s faint, but it could be where they’re going.” _

Gabriel and Anna take her up on that hint, sailing over cars and weaving through people like they’re weave poles. The concrete is grating on both of their paws, and they get plenty of yelps in their direction from frustrated passerby, but they need to  _ move _ .

There could be any number of things relying on them catching whoever it is that’s traveled through the Civil War anomaly, and Gabriel and Anna both know that better than most. There’s a familiar sound in the air, like the mechanical breathing of a respirator.

Gabriel skids to a stop on smooth stone floors, panting. The anomaly stays open for just long enough for Gabriel to watch helplessly as the three hop through, and wavers just long enough to sever one of Gabriel’s whiskers in half as he nearly reaches it.

Anna slams into him from behind, nearly spilling him into where the anomaly once was. Gabriel sniffs the ground- something feels off, wrong, like sickness has permeated the air. He shakes his head, ruffling the heavy fur that lies there, and begins the long walk back. He’s tall enough now that Anna, in her bloodhound- actually, now that he thinks about it, she’s not quite a bloodhound, is she? She has the nose, certainly- but her skin isn’t quite as droopy. He says as much to Anna, who shrugs.

_ “Saying I’m a bloodhound is easier than saying I’m a bloodhound-adjacent, but truth is, I’m not  _ quite _ bloodhound, same way you’re not quite wolf.” _

In any case, he’s tall enough that Anna in her hound form can race right under his long legs, as long as he holds still. The hound scouts ahead, this time, and Gabriel shrinks to a more manageable size, communications collar beeping irritatingly in his ear all the while. Anna looks back sympathetically, cocking her black and tan head to the side. He’s wolf-sized, now- still bigger than her, but not by near as much as he is when he settles all the way into this skin.

* * *

They’re calm, now, making their way peacefully back to the ARC. Anna shifts back, but Gabriel’s staying in his lupine form, thank you very much. Emma scratches between his ears. The communicator crackles, and their locators begin to ping again.

“The Civil War anomaly’s already locked…” the former detective mutters. There’s a commotion- screaming, to be specific- from the field, where people have already begun to file back in.

There’s one shimmering glass ball in front of them. Gabriel’s breath catches, though, because it’s not the only anomaly in the field.

“Andrew, you and Maxie, go get more locking devices. And get Cutter from the London team on the phone, we’re going to need him to see this.”

“Spaghetti junction,” Gabriel whispers in awe, back in his human skin, dark eyes shining with the light from the anomalies, shattering his eyes into a million pieces of glowing glass.

There’s a deep rumbling sound, a chuffing, as the creature that’s caused all this fuss hauls itself over the grass.

Gabriel’s probably larger, than this thing, but the mouth full of cruel teeth and the achingly familiar eyes, in addition to the immense sail upon this creature’s back- well, there’s no mistaking a  _ Dimetrodon _ when you see one.

“Hello, cousin,” he says, and watches as Emma jerks in surprise, with a snort. The Dimetrodon gapes, wide, showing off teeth in a rather impressive threat display.

Of course, Gabriel is bigger. Well, he can be bigger, at least-  _ much _ bigger. He stalks forwards, growling, and the Dimetrodon balks.

There’s a heavy weight that slams into his side, a long, strong tail and a heavy body attached to an impressive head.

Gabriel wracks his brain for what this could be. He’s in at least half a dozen paleontology-related courses- oh, shape of the head, type of body-

_ Amphicyon _ . A bear-dog, a big one, too. The Dimetrodon runs back into its own anomaly, hissing furiously, while Gabriel faces off against the smaller mammalian carnivore, and slams a heavy paw against its head.

The bear-dog growls, but continues to look around the spaghetti junction curiously. The Dimetrodon seems to know where it’s supposed to go, but-

“Send it into the one on the right of the tree,” a young man says. He’s wearing a red and white sweatshirt, marking him as a Harvard student, and Gabriel thinks he recognizes the face- the guy’s on the baseball team. He thinks. David has made him watch a lot of baseball since the Astros, his home team, won the World Series. Even college-level.

Gabriel does. The Amphicyon looks oddly at him, so Gabriel bowls it over as a warning, snarls loudly, and drives the bear-dog into the anomaly with a low bark.

“Hey,” the Harvard student asks, zipping in front of him, “You’re a Moondancer right? Cool! I don’t know many other mutants, I mean ya’d  _ think _ Harvard would’a had more, considering how much they prop up those of us who make it in-”

_ “I wouldn’t know, I didn’t. Did get accepted for the PhD program here, though,” _ Gabriel replies, but good-naturedly. He’s about ninety-nine percent sure he didn’t compete directly with this guy, no matter if they’re the same age or not.

“So, anyways,” the speedster asks, clearly relishing in the fact he’s not wearing limiters at the moment, “I was wondering if there are any archaeology or anthropology-related positions open?”

Gabriel, who’s barely been listening, too busy chasing large mammals back into their respective time periods, shifts, and reaches his head around the newcomer.

The thoughts he gets surprises him.

_ ‘Oh, he is  _ tall, _ ’ _ the newcomer thinks,  _ ‘Oh. Oh no. No, he’s  _ hot. _ That’s not fair. Tall and hot is  _ not  _ fair.’ _

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name,” Gabriel hums with a grin, pulling on what exists of his drawl as best he can. The newcomer’s face flushes more.

“Jeremy,” he says with a cough, “Jeremy Cohen. I, uh- I study archaeology. Here.”

Gabriel’s very aware that six and a half feet tall is more than enough to make most people attracted to men start swooning, because most people refuse to have standards beyond height.

“Gabriel Azose,” he purrs in reply, “Nice to meet you, Jeremy.”

Gabriel has zero idea what he’s doing, but apparently anything said in a low voice with an accent when you’re over six foot three works. He’s not going to complain. This guy’s sweet enough, and, well- it’s easier to flirt with someone who at least has an idea about what the anomalies are. Then, he doesn’t have to worry about spilling state secrets everywhere just because he doesn’t want to lie to the guy.

Jeremy’s eyes flicker over to the buttons on Gabriel’s bag when he swings it over his shoulder, to the pink and blue and white, and to the little rainbow button that’s almost obscured by the hood of his sweatshirt. His shoulders relax, and he grins.

_ ‘Oh, good. I’m not going to freak him out. Good, great, excellent.’ _

“You know,” Gabriel says, humor in his eyes, “You’re broadcasting, just a little bit.”

Jeremy’s face turns bright red, and then pale, as he motions for Gabriel to move. He jumps several feet out of the way. Gabriel takes one lazy, swinging step to the right, as a  _ Megacerops _ rushes past with her calf. He taps the beast on her shoulder- which he can reach- and indicates the anomaly from whence she came.

_ ‘Hurry UP, Andrew!’ _ he growls into their network.

_ ‘Hey, I’m moving as fast as I can,’ _ Andrew replies,  _ ‘It’s Maxie who’s stopping for more tranquilizers. I keep trying to tell them if we have to tranq any of the larger animals, we’re already done for.’ _

_ ‘Yeah, a Megacerops just came through with her calf,’ _ Gabriel says,  _ ‘I’m glad the whole Moondancer thing gives me an intimidation and charisma buff, I do  _ not _ want to have to deal with these things without my powers. Ever.’ _

_ ‘We don’t want you to either, kid. Makes the rest of our jobs harder.’ _

* * *

By the time that Andrew and Maxie arrive, most of the issue has been taken care of. There’s one, truly immense, anomaly that holds above the rest of them, one that Gabriel is getting increasingly nervous about. But nothing’s come through it, not yet, and maybe they’ll get lucky, maybe it’ll be a sauropod or something of the like and Gabriel can just ask politely. Jeremy seems to notice his trepidation.

“So, are the size of these time portals-”

“Anomalies,” Gabriel replies, “They’re called anomalies. More scientific, less obvious what we’re talking about to anyone not In The Know.”

“Right. Anomalies. Does the size of the anomaly correlate at all to the size of the creature-”

“We just call it an incursion.”

“Okay. Does the size of the anomaly relate to the size of the creature that can… incur?”

“Yes, actually,” Gabriel replies, “Which is why that one’s making me nervous.”

“Oh. Okay, neat. Like I was asking earlier, though, is there- is there an open archaeology position?”

Gabriel cocks his head.

“You’d have to ask our boss, actually. How many languages do you speak?”

“A few,” Jeremy replies, and when Gabriel narrows his eyes at him, he elaborates with “Six.”

“Which ones?”

“English, Yiddish, French because of my dad, Spanish, Yupik, and Russian,” he replies. Gabriel blinks. Between the French, the Yupik, and the Russian, that’s three languages that aren’t already covered by someone on the team.

“I also can read English from the colonial era, and I can pick up snatches of a few more.”

“You said you’re getting an archaeology degree, right?” Gabriel asks, “How much do you want to bet that the big anomaly, right there, would theoretically be ridiculously valuable to your research?”

“What do you mean?” the other man asks. Gabriel grins, all teeth.

“Usually,” he says, “When a big anomaly like that one exists in the world, something eventually finds its way through.”

He thinks that’s what jinxes them. Andrew and Maxie have finished locking every one of the eighteen  _ (eighteen!) _ Spaghetti Junction anomalies, some of which are already beginning to disappear.

Every one of the eighteen anomalies, except the big one.

It’s right then, of course, when a woolly mammoth comes through. Then two more, followed by a group of early humans, and chasing them…

Is that…

“That’s a fucking short-faced bear,” Gabriel says, “I’d remember that shithead anywhere. I  _ hate _ those things.”

“Why?” Jeremy says, temporarily distracted from the fact that there are humans that haven’t existed for at least a dozen or so thousand years, now, right in front of him. Gabriel huffs.

“They’re as big as I am in wolf form, and mean, too. Hey- get behind the barricade,  _ now! _ ” he shouts, with as much Influence as he can muster, grateful that he’s at least a better Moondancer than his cousin. There’s a language barrier, obviously, between him and the early humans, but they seem to understand that this comparative giant is encouraging them to seek safety.

“Listen,” he tells Jeremy, “I need you to make sure these people don’t die. Here’s an EMD. Do  _ not _ shoot me. Because I  _ will _ go down.”

“Who do I thank for this?” Jeremy asks. Gabriel huffs.

“If you don’t die today, I’ll introduce you. Consider this your interview.”

He shifts, big and intimidating, and rushes the bear. The mammoths begin to panic.

And that, of course, is how Professor Andrew Mason ends up hiding behind a barricade, heart pounding, watching as an archaeology student tries to usher a small, several thousand year old group of people across the short distance between them.

* * *

Andrew peers over the side of the barricade, as one of the mammoths nearly gores their lupine friend, who snaps back at them, getting a bear paw to the side for his trouble. Gabriel jumps, and races away. Next to Andrew, Maxie raises their gun, but they’re not quite quick enough. Two shots ring out before the bear falls, slumping to the ground. Gabriel shakes his fur out, and tries to look intimidating, but really the only thing that Andrew can think of as the wolf nips at the heels of the mammoths, is- is-

Andrew snorts. He really  _ does _ look like a sheepdog, rushing between his three charges, doesn’t he? He says such to Maxie, who shakes their head.

“I just wish we had Big Help here,” the soldier says, “It would be so much easier, if we had someone else to back us up, especially someone as big as her and her girlfriend.”

“That would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

The soldier glares at him.

“More ‘potentially life-saving’ than cool, Professor,” they say icily, “Now, let’s just hope we can solve all of this without too much issue.”

The mammoths, actually, are herded through the anomaly without much of a problem beyond mild protests. The last of them, actually, scoops up the great bear in her tusks, and shoves him through the anomaly, before following through herself. Andrew, Maxie, Gabriel, and the archaeology student- Andrew thinks Gabriel said the kid’s name is Jeremy- slump in relief, before a cry of alarm rings out.

“Oh no,” Maxie says.

“Oh no,” Andrew agrees.

“Oh no,” hisses Jeremy.

“Oh-ho-ho  _ no _ ,” Gabriel whines, staring at the four Pleistocene humans, who are all currently staring at the blank vista where the anomaly once was, distress clear on their faces, “This is not good.”

“I call ‘not it’ on explaining this to Big Bad,” Maxie hums, “This,  _ or _ the Harvard student.”

“I’m on the second one, but not it on the first,” Gabriel replies, “Emma, you’re team leader-”

_ “Hell _ no,” the ex-cop says, “If you think I’m going to try to explain this mess, you’ve got another thing coming. Frank, it’s your turn.”   
“No, I was the one who explained why we got one of the UK team’s Microraptors.”   
“Fine. Sam.”

“I was there, too.”

“It’s my turn,” Andrew says, “I’ll take the fallout.”

* * *

“And so, this is the tyrannosaur night pen. It’s the last stop on the tour because it’s the most impressive. Now, I think- Oh, hi Honey! You’re back, already!”

Jeremy stares at the immense tyrannosaur, warm dappled gold even in the unflattering lights of the night pen.   
“Hi,” he says hesitantly. The Albertosaurus sniffs at him, and a heavier, though shorter, shape moves through the doors, white slashed through grey and blue and red.

“This is Stratus,” Gabriel says, “We like to say she’s the real boss-lady here.”

Yeah.

Jeremy can get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jeremy likes to pretend he's a tough guy but he's really Soft


	15. the earliest of bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cute. they are CUTE. they are CUTE!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey party people, did ya miss me?

“So, what happened with that Leeds guy that you all got Honey from?”

“Poked a pin in the wrong person’s ego by doing the right thing” David replies from his office chair, “He still, officially speaking, works on the Canadian project- Project Magnet- but they took specific information from his memory- I wouldn’t have advised it, Lester wouldn’t have advised it, we both put in a request for his transfer, but they were adamant about nobody beyond the highest of the high knowing about it. Fortunately for him, Arturia Blackwood is a very good memory manipulator when under pressure. And also Canadian.”

“The  _ figure skater _ is in on it?” Jeremy asks, eyes wide, as he examines the photos Dr. Page has sent over, finally, after months of asking for photos of the artefact.

“Of course. So do the pair that run that lovely little account- Search and Banter, I think it’s called- Cassius Blackwood and the werewolf partner he works with, Ian. It’s easier to tell family of a colleague about this- they’re less likely to spill the metaphorical beans, and Gabriel’s family is... uniquely well-placed.” 

“He means they’re nosy, ambitious, and all-around a host of nuisances,” Gabriel interjects, “Don’t be nice just because I’m related to them. I can only stand four of them at this point. From my generation, at least. Aunt Rebecca’s actually pretty nice.”

“Unfortunately,” David says, “The only member of the Canadian government who ended up retaining information about the anomalies died last spring, which means it’s Arturia Blackwood and a dozen people with selective amnesia. If the Canadian government hadn’t ordered her to destroy the memories, it would be Arturia Blackwood and a dozen slightly confused people, but unfortunately Canadians aren’t as nice as they pretend to be.”

Gabriel watches, head cocked to the side, as Jeremy frowns, and zooms off, sending photos flying. Charlie chirps in irritation and burrows his dark-feathered head into Gabriel’s arms.

_ “He needs to stop doing that inside,” _ the raptor whines. Clementine barks in reply, amused, from where she sits on top of Gabriel’s feet, too big to be held. She’s too big for anything, really. At three years old, she’s already the size of a large dog. Her thick orange baby fluff hasn’t left, not yet, and her eyes haven’t turned orange, then red, yet either. Gabriel would normally check in with Shoshannah in the back of his head at this point- he’s gotten rather good at checking on his cousins, he thinks- but-

Jeremy’s back in the blink of an eye, with a pen and paper and a list of things… and ink all over his hands. Gabriel leans forwards curiously, and Charlie clambers on top of his back, and on top of his head, digging sharp little claws into Gabriel’s hair.

“Chuck. Manners.”

The Hesperonychus chirps apologetically, and crouches, instead.

“What are you doing, anyways?”

“Writing a list of things Leeds should probably be informed about when he gets back,” Jeremy replies, “The guy gave you  _ Honey,  _ and is still kind of attached to the project in Canada. I bet he shows up again.”

“Willing to put money on it?” David replies, and Gabriel leans back again, Charlie grumbling in protest and muttering about humans not being able to pick a single sitting position all the while. “We’ve got a pot on who’s a recurring face. So far, Anna’s the only winner- those folks we were chasing right before we met you, actually.”

“Oh?” Maria asks, not even bothering to turn her chair around. Frank, Fallon, and Julia all join what’s starting to become a proper circle, too.

“Aren’t you supposed to be home?” Jeremy asks. The four newcomers look between themselves for a moment, before Julia speaks.

“Cohen, let me tell you something about working with dinosaurs. Some of the novelty wears off, obviously, but then there’s also the fact that we  _ work _ with  _ dinosaurs.  _ Combine that with the fact that none of us are allowed to have a social life-”

“Security reasons, Rudd-” David interjects.

“I know that, Big Bad, it’s not like I ever wanted to have one to begin with, interaction tires all of us out.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jeremy replies, “But I think the team’s big enough to go months without seeing some people- it’s definitely a large enough social circle. I think.”

“Especially if you count the other offices,” Frank replies, “We had this guy pop over for like- what, four months- while London was shut down? What was his name?”

“It wasn’t Becker,” Gabriel says, narrowing his eyes, “Becker was too busy being miserable. I think he said his name was-”

The anomaly alarm sounds. They must have fixed the sound, because it wasn’t this subdued before. It’s kind of nice, if he’s going to be honest.

“Providence, Rhode Island,” Emma calls, “Newbie, Gabriel, Maria- you’re up. Torres, take Owens and Monroe, follow us in another car. Auggie, you’re with them too- we’ve already got injuries, bad ones, too.”

“I could run there?” Jeremy offers. Emma shakes her head. Gabriel puts Charlie down, and offers Clementine a quick pat on the head for her troubles.

“With your metabolism? Kid, I’m not risking you passing out just to get us there quicker. This is your first field assignment precisely  _ because _ it’s bad. We need you on the top of your game. Archosaurian in nature, though, which means Gabe, get ready. Rauisuchids, from what we can tell, and at least one herrerasaurid.”

“Ooh,  _ Triassic _ ,” Gabriel replies, “I mean, everything we get is from North America- or at least the Western hemisphere-, so that’s going to be what, Heptasuchus, Postosuchus, or Vivaron?”

“We don’t always get North American anomalies,” Andrew retorts, confused, before Zach taps him on the shoulder and shakes his head.

“The only exception to the rule so far has been Leroy, and he was still Western Hemisphere,” Zach says, “So yeah, that gives us three species to work with. Longer than fourteen feet, it’s probably Vivaron or Heptasuchus. Now get  _ going, _ kids.”

* * *

“So, what were you writing before, anyways?” Gabriel asks, leaning over to look at the paper that Jeremy’s folded over.

“I told you. Things to tell Leeds whenever he’s inevitably brought back into the fold again,” Jeremy replies, before unfolding the sheet of paper so Gabriel can look at it. The list, so far, reads-

_ Your memory was wiped. _

_ The person who wiped said memory did not want to do it. Do not be mad at her. _

Gabriel knows that much, but he’s surprised Jeremy managed to pick up on the whole Ria-was-threatened-by-someone-who-would-have-done-a-worse-job thing.

_ Time portals exist. That’s what you’ve been chasing this entire time. _

_ Dinosaurs. _

_ You gave us an Albertosaurus. You named her Honey. She misses you. _

“Are you sure about that?” Gabriel asks in reply, even though he knows Jeremy is right, at least on that point. Honey knows Leeds’s face, even after as long as it’s been, and she’s voiced concern for the man before.

“Yeah, ‘course I am. Anyways, have you dealt with rauisuchids before?” Jeremy digs. Gabriel shakes his head, then cocks it to the side.

“They’re still archosaurs, so I should be able to communicate with them and get them to calm down, but it’s not always a surefire thing.”

“So you’re kind of like a police negotiator, then, right? I haven’t seen you in the field before with archosaurs, sorry.”

“No, Jeremy, it’s fine, you’re new to the field. We’re due for a human history anomaly, I think, so we should be able to put the skills you’re in school for to good use.”

Jeremy laughs. It’s an awkward kind of laugh, Gabriel can tell, the kind where he’s not sure if he should be laughing in the current situation and is kind of worried about somebody judging him for it.

“It’s fine. You’re going to get used to all of this sooner or later, and I think all of us would rather it be sooner so we don’t have to calm you down when we start dealing with whatever the hell is over there. It’s going to be bad. There’s going to be blood, and probably screaming, and a very powerful, likely hungry or irritable carnivore. Best case scenario, it’s just a misunderstanding about nesting sites, and we can clear it up and move them back through the anomaly. Worst case scenario, we’re dealing with a man-eater and we’re going to have to react accordingly. It’s fully possible someone is going to die, or that someone is already dead, and we’re going to have to work  _ together _ to make sure the damage is as minimal as we can make it.”

Jeremy’s gone pale during Gabriel’s pep talk- well, more pale than usual, at least, though that’s not a significant difference by Gabriel’s standards. He looks, to be completely honest, like he’s about to vomit, and Gabriel understands that completely. It’s rare, now, for them to deal with something that’s already hurt people as bad as these rauisuchids have, and Gabriel’s just glad it’s his first, that his first field mission is going to be the worst of them all, that everything after is going to feel like coasting until they get one of  _ these _ again.

He’s in his fur before he’s even out the door, bigger and stronger than he could ever be on two legs. He can smell them, in the air, and blood, and-

They’re too late.

He knows that much before they even see the bodies.

Gabriel can here vomiting from back in the car, and turns sympathetic eyes towards his new teammate for just a moment, before pressing onwards. There’s high-pitched screaming from one of the ledges, he’ll take care of that-

First.

There’s a rush of air by his flank, ruffling his fur.

_ “He got over that fast,” _ Gabriel says aloud. He can hear Maria approaching from behind.

“You know as well as I do that it never gets easier,” she says, ruffling the scruff of his neck with one hand. Gabriel sighs, and moves forwards, sniffing against the ground for any trace of the rauisuchids.

_ “I think I can trust he’s got the survivors,”  _ he says,  _ “I’ll try to find our culprits.” _

“I’ve got the EMDs,” Maria replies, and Gabriel knows better than not to chuckle, not when dried, washed-out red flecks are visible all over the walls of the compound, and death hangs heavy in the air.

He takes a running jump against one of the lower walls, sinking sharp claws into the top, and hauling himself up with both of his front paws. He can’t quite stay stable, or sit on top of even this thick wall, but he can most certainly get a better viewpoint for a moment, can see what’s going on down there.

It’s worse.

Gabriel swallows back vomit and terrible, terrible memories  _ (long ago, she can’t hurt you anymore-) _ and grits his teeth, and  _ howls. _

The sound ricochets through the walls of the compound and beyond, rings the old stone like a bell, and reverberates so hard the glass of the windows that are still intact vibrates with the force of it.

The herrerasaurid is here-  _ Chindesaurus, _ or at least that’s the guess Gabriel makes right now, looking down its gullet as the greedy little thing stares up at him and lunges.

Gabriel takes a step back.

_ “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” _ he says. The Chindesaurus startles.

_ “What?” _

_ “I said,” _ Gabriel replies, shaking out his fur and raising his hackles. Even he can hear the way his voice drops into something nearly below human hearing, the way he sounds like he can’t be bargained with,  _ “That I don’t think that’s a good idea.” _

_ “What are you?” _ the Chindesaurus asks, backpedaling as best as they can with their dinosaur’s feet. Gabriel moves forwards, teeth bared.

_ “I’d suggest,” _ he snarls,  _ “You head on home.” _

The Chindesaurus runs. It’s a good idea.

The first one that the herrerasaurid has had all day, it seems.

Gabriel can smell the rauisuchids on the wind, knows they’re close, knows their claws are stained and their teeth are too, knows he needs to move fast, because unlike the Chindesaurus, the- they  _ must _ be  _ Vivaron, _ because the herrerasaurid was most certainly a Chindesaurus- the rauisuchids are big enough to do some damage to his own shape.

Fortunately, Gabriel’s not just big- he’s faster than these things, too.

* * *

Maria can see the two young adults she’s essentially babysitting doing their best to clear the area. Jeremy’s dropped seventeen people at her feet, now, and is still picking up more.

There’s a baying bark- Gabriel’s. Maria leaves Emma and Auggie, both staying behind with the survivors, while Jeremy flickers over the wall with a crackle of static and the smell of burning rubber.

They really need to get him a better pair of running shoes. That’s really all she can think about, right now, knowing that there’s something thick-scaled and terrible beyond the walls, ready to hurt if it’s at all possible.

Maria knows better than most that even maneaters aren’t truly evil, but some animals… some animals deserve to at least go to bat for the title. And she’d seen the looks on these people’s faces, here- she knows how afraid they are, how much these creatures have scarred them for life, with thick heads and long teeth and sharp claws.

“Torres, Monroe, eyes out. Owens, on me, you’ve all got your EMDs ready. Let’s make sure these things think twice before coming back here ever again, shall we?” she asks, clutching her own weapon tightly and desperately trying not to betray how frightened she too is, fingers going to her own subtle engagement ring.

There’s something terrible, in the air, here. Maybe her fiancee’s Knowing has rubbed off on Maria just a little bit, or maybe it’s just the fact that they rarely ever deal with rauisuchians and the unfamiliar is uncomfortable at best and horrifying and traumatizing at worst. Could even be superstition. But as Maria hops over the barricade listening to Gabriel’s earth-moving snarls, she thinks she probably has the right of it.

There’s something terribly  _ wrong, _ right now, something that seeps into every one of their bones, and locks them in place like ice. If something hasn’t gone wrong already, it’s going to go wrong  _ soon _ , and it’s going to be  _ bad. _ It’s this knowing of what’s to come, this superstition, maybe, or maybe something else, maybe it’s Nina, with her own kind of Knowing, or maybe it’s Zach, looking into possible futures, and Gabriel carrying it to her head, maybe it’s a dozen or more things, maybe Maria’s just worried.

When she sees the blood this time, so close to the anomaly, a massive wolf with fire in his eyes and a gouge down one side- well, Maria’s not exactly sure what happens next, and she’ll attest to that anywhere. What she does remember, of course, is the fact that their newest member is far more injured than Gabriel is.

The most guilty of these memories, of course, is a single thought that runs through Maria’s head when she sees Jeremy’s mangled torso, the one that will keep her up at night for years to come, wracked with that guilt:

_ At least it wasn’t his legs. _

* * *

Jeremy’s in the hospital for less than three weeks. In fact, despite being the injured party, he’s the  _ least _ traumatized- it had happened quickly, almost accidentally, and it had been more him slamming into the open jaws of a panicking rauisuchian at the last second rather than any wrongdoing on the part of either party (though they all know they’ll blame the Vivaron that did it to him until what might just be the end of time). Gabriel’s going to blame himself for it, of course. He doubts he’d still be  _ him _ if he didn’t do such things, if he didn’t blame himself every time something went wrong, if he didn’t feel so protective over his little pack of nine.

Because that’s what they  _ are, _ really- they’re a pack. A relatively small one, of course, unless they start counting auxiliary members, in which case it balloons into a very large pack very, very quickly.

Gabriel finds himself at Jeremy’s hospital bed more often than not, neglecting his duties at his post of The Only Empath On The Team and trying to help out the Pleistocene humans that they’re trying to pin down the anomaly for.

They don’t need him, anyways. By the time Jeremy’s out of the hospital, they’ve located the anomaly, which is relatively on-the-dot predictable, are preparing for the next time that it opens, and are hoping that the Pleistocene folks haven’t picked up any modern superbugs.

“Always wanted a handsome man waiting at my bedside when I woke up in the hospital,” Jeremy says with a laugh on the very first day.

“Pretty sure you should have been trying to avoid the hospital in the first place,” Gabriel finds himself replying, but leans forwards, eyes bright and smile easy.

He’s going to be okay.

“So, like, after this,” Jeremy says, waving around at the general existence of the hospital, which gets Gabriel to start laughing again, which gets Jeremy to start laughing, which gets one of the nurses to glare at Gabriel until Jeremy reassures him that it’s fine, he’s just such a good comedian he cracks himself up sometimes.

“So. After this,” Jeremy continues, gesturing with the one little ballpoint pen he’s allowed to have in his hospital bed, “Do you want to, like, I don’t know- get dinner, or something? A coffee? Anything?”

“Like a date?” Gabriel replies, a grin on his face, “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a date, before. Might like to try one.”

“Oh, really?” Jeremy asks, “That sounds like a funny story.”

“Ah, work,” Gabriel chirps, “I love my job, but, to be honest, some of the regulations, they’re a bit- you know, right? I’ve met a couple of people, sure, but I’ve never  _ dated, _ sounds like fun.”

Jeremy’s laugh is quieter, now, more an amused smile than anything else.

“So that’s a yes, then?”

“Yeah, you. I’ll go out with you.”

“You know, if I knew putting myself in the hospital was what it took-”

“Literally just  _ asking _ was what it took, you colossal dumbass. Now, where are we thinking for dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so some continuity fixes and there's going to be some time jumping in the next chapter (as there always is in this fic). I adore my boys. even i myself do not know exactly when nina and maria got married and that's how they want it


	16. even earlier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i am. so tired. but this fic is *very* close to done and then I can properly work on a flash and a bang!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, party people, did you miss me?

By the time they get back to base, the sky is an angry gray.

There’s been another anomaly alert while they were gone, but it’d been closed off by 

“Since when do we get  _ Cambrian _ anomalies?” Jeremy asks, leaning over Gabriel’s shoulder. They’ve been dating for a while now, it’s nice to have the contact from someone his age who doesn’t see him as the team baby. It’s also nice to have  _ finally _ started his grad program.

“Since we’re the only ones not dealing with a possible time crisis,” Gabriel replies, swiveling in the chair, “I mean-”

“Wait, how would you have heard about that? Wouldn’t they be keeping it under wraps?”

“Shoshannah isn't as good about keeping her information to herself as she thinks she is,” Gabriel hums, “It’s good for them that she’s mostly only talking to them. There’d be a lot more spilled information if she wasn’t.” It really is. From Shoshannah’s lackluster attempts at keeping information to herself, Gabriel has learned that the people he’d seen when Jeremy joined with them were a woman from Victorian times, his cousin’s step-uncle (sort of), and a now-dead woman. He’s also learned that there’s  _ something _ happening on the British end regarding the anomalies, considering just how  _ nervous _ Shoshannah is and how obsessive she’s been about asking if anything’s changed.

Gabriel snaps out of his thoughts at a familiar, deep, rumbling noise.

There’s another roar from outside the facility. Jeremy laughs, for just a moment, and offers Gabriel a quick nod as the Moondancer gets to his feet.

“You’re being summoned,” the speedster snorts. Gabriel leans on his shoulders, well aware that it’ll get Jeremy to reconsider teasing him if there’s a chance he’ll be crushed to death by his oversized boyfriend.

“I am indeed. See you in a bit, dear,” Gabriel replies, shifting as he goes, and sighs.

If Stratus and Honey and now, Clementine, had been any other tyrannosaurs, they would have lost three people in the last month alone. He doesn’t know what it is about large carnivores that makes people forget all sense when it comes to dealing with them, but it’s clearly something, because they’ve had to switch to a pawprint approval from Gabriel for the door to open so that none of the tyrannosaurs deal with feather-thieves again.

It’s not terrible, but it is irritating when he hasn’t taken the time to fiddle with new clothes he’s gotten and doesn’t feel like shifting, and it’ll be disastrous if anything happens to take out his powers.

_ “We’re alright,” _ Stratus says,  _ “I don’t think they are.” _

The doors to her night pen are open. It’s started to  _ pour _ outside, and there’s at least five new people on the edges of the Daspletosaurus’s nesting area. Gabriel curses, shifts back to human, and shouts for David.

“Hey, are you alright?” he asks what appears to be the leader, a woman with close-cropped black hair, though he’s not sure where she could have gotten scissors, considering the condition all of the rest of them seem to be in.

“What the  _ hell _ are you?” she hisses angrily, taking a step forwards as if to protect the rest of her little group. Gabriel amends his count- there’s at least seven people there, including a toddler and an infant that can’t be any older than three months, which means it must have been born in whatever situation these folks just got themselves out of. The toddler and the infant seem to belong to the same pair, actually- perhaps they were both born under those conditions.

“An evolutionary biology grad student at Harvard,” Gabriel replies smoothly, and leans out the door to holler again, before turning back to the group.

“Do you have any members who need immediate medical attention? Our medic is still here.”

The leader steps forwards again.

“How the hell do you have a dinosaur not eating us?”

_ “Because I’m not fucking RUDE????” _ Stratus yells, and snorts, turning her tail away from the woman in charge of the group of seven.

“Stratus, I’m sure they didn’t mean anything like that. You’re  _ my _ age, why do you insist on acting like a huge baby sometimes?” Gabriel asks, rubbing the scales on the tyrannosaur’s snout.

“Is it an herbivore?”

Gabriel practically doubles over laughing, while Stratus continues to give the newcomers the evil eye.

_ “Are you kidding me? An herbivore? What does this one think I am? A Therizinosaurus? I am  _ offended.  _ I am  _ revolted. _ I am  _ disgusted.”

“Stratus, you were never even active while Vine was a thing. You can’t just misquote popular vines that nobody is going to understand in here but me.”

_ “No, Angela gets it.” _

“Doctor Hall abides by your nonsense, that’s a different thing from actually getting the joke. Now, I’m going to move you into the pen with Honey, could you please do your best to avoid spooking these nice people yet again? There are small children present.”

_ “Oh, tell them I’m sorry, then.” _

“Is that genuine or sarcasm? I can never tell with you.”

_ “Genuine, you dick.” _

“I cannot  _ believe _ Shoshannah taught you how to swear, I am going to have some  _ words _ with my cousin.”

_ “Teach me how to swear in  _ any _ human language and I’ll stop swearing in this one.” _

“Oh, I cannot believe you. Come on, let’s move. Stratus says she’s sorry for scaring the kids, by the way. She can’t exactly help being a massive hypercarnivore, but she definitely  _ CAN _ help her  _ ATTITUDE-” _

Stratus laughs all the way into the adjacent pen, red eyes tracking the new arrivals carefully. Gabriel sighs, and stands up straight. He towers over every one of these newcomers, which is interesting, though what’s  _ not _ interesting is the knife in the leader’s hand as she points at him to back off.

“Gabriel?” Maxie asks, knocking on the door like it’s not already open. Gabriel nods to them good-naturedly, and moves to leave.

“Look, I’m serious, here. Does anyone need medical attention?”

“We have a few back at camp,” the leader admits quietly. Gabriel nods, and turns to Maxie.

“I’ll go get Auggie,” the soldier says, making sure not to make themselves too intimidating to the newcomers.

“I’ll stay.”

* * *

Doctor August Weber is not a pediatric specialist, which he has told David many times before. However, like many a doctor, he cannot bear to see people hurt. He is a caring man. Which is good, because there are three very injured children in his care at the moment, one of whom has an infection that likely won’t be all that difficult to treat considering the fact that past bacterial bugs haven’t been exposed to medical quality penicillin.

“You can help them, right?” the leader of this little group says. August decides not to kick up a fuss, and instead, to just work on fixing the children and possibly making sure they won’t be put into this situation again. He can yell when the situation demands, after all, even if he does prefer to avoid raising his voice.

“Yes, I can,” he says, “What are their names? I’d like to start a medical file for them, just to have some on hand. Some of these injuries look old.”

“Ah, Tiffany Smith, we picked her up sometime in the seventeenth century,” the woman says, “Kyle Reed, we don’t know when he stumbled in from but he’s terrified of the future creatures, Daisy Carpenter, we picked her up in the 1920’s.”

“Alright, then,” August replies, “And yours? My name is August Weber, but everyone here calls me Auggie for short.”

“Auggie! One of the newbies pissed off Mufasa again!” Frank shouts, pulling in a man with deep scratches down his arm. August curses and goes to put out the new fire, before returning back to the children.

“Ah, my name is Diana,” she replies, “Diana King.”

“Lovely name, Diana. Any other information on their medical histories? Allergies, intolerances, surgeries?”

August discusses things with Diana for a long while. Nobody new comes flying through the door, fortunately, which allows him to do his work for a little while longer without issue. Before too long, Diana is pulled out to have a very different discussion with David and the rest of the field team, likely to clear up some rumor or another they’ve gotten from the UK team. August doesn’t find himself minding all that much. He likes taking care of children. Their questions are always at least mildly interesting, unlike those of adults, who are always about function and never about the nitty-gritty of the how and why.

August loves explaining things to young children. It’s always so  _ fun _ , especially when he doesn’t know, because he can just pull out the wonders of modern invention and look it up.

August loves living in the modern day, too.

Nina rolls in before long, tired. She may be a veterinarian, not a human doctor, but August likes to talk to her.

“Do you have any more photos from your wedding?” he asks, and Nina agrees to show him after these children are out of critical and can be moved to a hospital instead of the base’s medical bay where their recovery will be hampered by the worrying presence of large carnivores.

August can agree with that much.

* * *

“Alright, Diana,” David says. Most of the team is in here, except for the Masons, and Nina, who’s gone to keep Auggie company while he takes care of the kids. Maria looks just about ready to take over, while Gabriel looks about ready to slink back to his tyrannosaurs and  _ Jeremy _ looks about ready to slink back to his artifacts.

“Yes?”

“We’ve got a few questions. Namely, how did several people from widely disparate eras end up traveling together?” Emma interrupts, giving David a  _ look _ that says ‘don’t worry, I’ve got this.’

David nods, and cocks his head, and indicates for Anna to peel off and follow him, which she does.

“You’re sure they’re connected to the ones that came through before?”

“They smell too close to be anything else,” Anna confirms, “It seems faded, but-”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll let Emma know your suspicions so she can add them to the question roster. Are you alright? You’ve been a little closed off lately.”

“Just seems like everyone else is pairing off,” Anna replies with a laugh, “I didn’t want to be a bother.”

David’s face drops, and he wheels around to look at her.

“Sergeant Anna Daniels, you have never been a bother  _ once _ in all the time you’ve been here, and you certainly won’t be if you start  _ talking _ to us more than once in a while. Besides, if you want a single’s club to join, trust me, I will start one.”

“Aww, thanks, Boss. Or- wait, is this you being a dad again? Shit, it is, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed. I will  _ not _ stop until every young member of my team has been relentlessly parented,” David teases, a spring back in his step.

“You know we’re more like a pack now, right?”

David takes a moment to consider it. She’s not wrong. They  _ have _ become something of a little pack now, nine connected people no matter how low the connection simmers in the backs of their heads, and  _ their _ people. David knows how wolf packs work, knows that he’s stepped right into the idea just by being both a leader and something resembling a parent. He knows how much these people care about each other, knows they’d do anything to watch each other’s backs, and he’s more grateful for that than he is for almost anything else. Almost. He can think of a few things to the contrary.

“Yes, I suppose we are,” David replies after his moment of thought, carefully skimming their memorial wall of victims until he finds the name he’s been looking for, the one that seemed so familiar when it was introduced.

_ Diana King. _ She’s from this time, though she’s supposed to only be twenty now, not the clearly thirty or more she’s become since then, no longer the barely an adult that had been presumed dead three years ago when they’d just begun their search for the anomalies. He taps it, pointing it out to the bloodhound, who nods.

“Right, that does make sense. She shouldn’t have any issues integrating into modern society, then, or at least not as many as someone else might.”

“No, she shouldn’t. She should be perfectly fine, once we give her a little time to adjust back. The children should be alright as well. We should start looking for their three break-offs, though. Between you and Gabriel, we’ve managed to piece together that they showed up in the UK, but we’re not sure what happened between their split-up and their appearance here and in the UK.”

“According to what I’ve managed to wrangle out of my cousin, between their appearance here and their appearance in London, the third woman- Charlotte Cameron- got sick, likely a similar infection to what the children have. She was in good health when we saw her, so it shouldn’t have been an issue then. Do we know what nations the other adults are from?”

Gabriel’s sharp today, on top of things even more than David himself is. He’s smart- David wouldn’t have let him on the team if he wasn’t- but he’s spent the last few years re-learning how to be a kid. Now, not for the first time, David’s seeing _his_ _kid_ growing up, and what kind of man he’ll be when he finally settles in to being truly comfortable in his own skin. A calm, intelligent, reasonable man with one hell of a drive, who loves his people more than anything. David doesn’t know how he saw the young man in front of him now in the scared but kind kid that had shown up at Maria’s apartment right behind Emma with a Daspletosaurus in a duffel bag, but knows deep in his gut that he had.

And he is so,  _ so _ proud of him.

In a few years, he will be even prouder to call that same young man  _ Doctor, _ when the fear that still lingers behind his eyes now is all but gone, replaced by nothing but love and fire.

* * *

Gabriel misses his sisters.

He doesn’t remember when he started thinking of them like that, but he hasn’t seen them anywhere close to enough, not since he’s practically moved back into the base, but… 

He misses having them around. He misses them  _ so much. _ And maybe he’s not in the best mood right now, but he wants to call  _ home _ and tell Zoe and Morgan that he’s fine and they don’t have to worry, that he loves them. Maybe it’s the fact that these people in front of him, the seven that had made it to the base on their own and the three in the infirmary- they didn’t want to leave, and maybe that reminds him how easy it is to go missing, to slip away-

He barely makes it through the questionnaire, and turns back through the door afterwards. He can’t let these people down, these people that he loves so much that it would kill him to see the disappointment in their eyes.

Maybe Emma sees it, maybe that’s why she directs him towards David again.

“Hey, kiddo,” David says, and maybe it’s weird dad magic, but he immediately offers a hug, “What’s this about?”

“Some of them haven’t been home in years, or most of their lives,” Gabriel replies, trying to get a proper dad hug even though he’s something close to twice David’s size, “I guess it spooked me.”

“Would have spooked you a hell of a lot more when you first got here,” David replies, “I ever tell you how proud of you I am?”

“You do that a lot, Dad.”

“Well, clearly not enough. Come on, we think we’re good?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel says, shaking himself out of it, “Yeah, I’m good, Dad, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’m always going to worry. That’s my job. Now, let’s see if we can get this done  _ properly _ without me having to whine to Lester yet again. It gets humiliating after long enough. Maybe this time we’ll land ourselves on BuzzFeed Unsolved like that one time with the giant future penguins.”

That never fails to get Gabriel to laugh.

“I cannot  _ believe _ you watch that show. You told all of us it was a comments section security risk!”

“Yeah, that’s because  _ I _ want to yell at them and I’m hoping someone calls me out on it, kiddo.”

Gabriel goes home early that night, and proceeds to stay up until three in the morning with his off-school sisters binging entire seasons of TV and eating half of the food in the pantry. It’s great.

It’s made even better when David sits down with them, apparently unable to sleep, and gets wrapped up in the same children’s show that’s sucked Gabriel down the rabbit hole already.

* * *

James Lester has gotten used to a lack of calls from his American counterpart over something or another. He’s dealing with the inevitable argument that will arise from when Quinn finally snaps out of whatever ‘fuck it’ trance he’s in and realizes how absolutely batshit his current situation is, but he doesn’t mind the occasional call from David- they’ve become closer to social calls at this point, now that the Major has found his feet and his confidence in the circles they now both frequent. James still gets photos of the little Daspletosaurus who’s certainly anything but little anymore.

“Hello, David.”

_ “Hello, James. How is your family? How is your team? Do you still have contact with those two time-hoppers?” _

“No, we don’t, that was weeks ago. What, do you have anything you need to ask?”

_ “Actually,” _ David replies, in that awkward tone that means he’s got some headache or another to deal with and because James has a year on him in this regard, he’s got to assist,  _ “We, ah- we found the other ones.” _

“You  _ what?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmmmmmmmmmm  
> there may be a followup fic to all of this in the distant future.


	17. heavy feet trod the ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the tadpole man cometh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, party people, did ya miss me?

The assimilation goes smoothly, at least smoothly enough- fake identities, new homes, the works. Gabriel is the one who suggests to direct them towards the local xeno hospital- they may be used to dealing with aliens, not humans, but the new identities they need there aren’t all that different from the ones that particularly long-lived non-humans need to snag every couple of decades, when people start to realize that no amount of plastic surgery makes their unaging face make sense.

It goes so smoothly that Andrew is reminded of how well they work  _ without _ him and his calculations getting in the way.

“You alright?” Nina asks, and Andrew shrugs his shoulders, before prodding in the back of his head makes him sigh and turn back to her.

“I just… why do I keep showing up?” he asks, “You all have this covered.”

“Hey, look at me,” Nina says, “You’ve got a place here. You’re our theory guy. We’d be lost without you. I bet there’s going to be something frustrating today that you’ll be able to talk through no problem. Also, have you visited the xeno hospital in NYC yet, because that place kicks some serious ass. It is the coolest.”

“Isn’t the head trauma surgeon a twelve year old?”

“He’s six hundred something. But seriously, it’s pretty cool, you should check it out.”

“Are you just distracting me so that I won’t continue to think about this? Because I’ll be honest, it’s working.”

Nina laughs.

“We’re two members of the only two married pairs on the team, Andrew, we need to all stick together. You really going to go on a double date with either a) someone that David starts dating and is weird around, b) Emma and David platonically, c) the brats, or d) other real adults that it won’t be weird to hang out with outside of work? You’re my buddy, I’m worried about you, but I don’t know how to fix it and therefore I’ll be distracting you instead.”

“Thanks, Griffin.”

They’re not as co-dependent as what he’s seen of the British team- they can’t be. The center of their little wheel is only one of them, and so, there’s no constant communication, just a low-level hum and the opportunity to talk if they want.

“I would say go home, take a nap, even if it’ll be tough for us, but you clearly need to be staying here. Now. Let’s see how we’re doing with planning that multi-team meeting, I heard Chennai finally got London to agree to show up.”

“It’s scheduled for whenever we finally calm down from all of this nonsense,” Andrew says, grabbing one of the mugs of coffee from the pot, wheeling his arms around expressively, “But, of course, who knows when  _ that’ _ ll happen, the anomalies are increasing in frequency, the animals are getting stressed-”

“Wait, since when are the anomalies increasing in frequency? I thought our luck was just shitty.”

“You seriously haven’t noticed?-”

Andrew forgets what he was worried about, ranting at Nina with a full mug of coffee in one hand while they stalk back over to the bullpen.

* * *

An anomaly opens deep below the surface, for just a moment. A creature, old and magnificent, swims through- it is his second of the day, and he is tired.

He floats to the surface, eyes closed, sun playing across his back. The sail doesn’t quite break the surface like his head does, warmth seeping deep down into his old, old bones. Eyes that have seen too much for anyone to bear alone, no matter how antisocial the species, close as he revels in the light and the heat of early summer in a shallow lake in Virginia.

The monster, they will say (years from now, when they do not fear retribution from those who know already, who know more than they ever had) is calm, regal, distinguished. He does not pay any heed to those who watch anxiously from the dock, instead dragging himself onto dry land, letting himself be warm for the first time in… a long time. The sail catches light, the sail catches warmth, and he- he just lets himself sleep.

One eye cracks open, when something small toddles past his teeth. He’s eaten recently, he’s anything but hungry, and this small thing… he can tell when other creatures are intelligent, and this one most certainly is.

He’s not entirely sure what the little creature is saying, but he clearly passes some sort of test, because it immediately lays down next to him, looking up fondly. Beyond the little creature, there are several others, slightly larger, fearful.

This little thing is afraid of the others. That’s good to know. He curls a thick, heavy tail around the small creature, sweeping sand with it. The small creature makes a sound that he assumes is amusement, and crawls closer to him, almost hiding under his arms. He’s fine with it.

He’s not hungry, and… this is intriguing, if not mildly enjoyable. He hasn’t met anything unafraid of him like this since… well, since the first doorway, really. His eyes slide back towards the doorway in the lake, shimmering, but barely visible with how the sun already plays across the surface. He closes his eyes again, and tries to sleep.

There is feeling, on his face, right under his eye, and he opens the eye facing the small creature again.

It’s chattering, and holding something- oh. A fish. A decently sized one, too, he bets the creature has no idea how difficult it is to find one of the right size for him.

The creature runs its paws down his snout, and he snorts.

He doesn’t mind this, all that much. The little creature’s hands are gentle, like it’s careful it will hurt him, despite the fact that he is clearly bigger and more capable than said little creature and it shouldn’t have to worry about that sort of thing. He’d make a point about it, if he could talk to the little creature properly.

The little creature pulls out… something… from what he’d assumed was simply a fold of skin along its side. It does smell vaguely like food, but nothing he’d be interested in. And water, too- he can smell it.

The little creature is in here for the long haul, then. He can deal with it.

It’s not like it’s a hardship, anyways.

* * *

Gabriel hates long drives. He hates them with a burning passion.

“I can’t see why I can’t just make a jump over there, and make a jump back if it’s not an archosaur,” he says, trying to cram himself into the passenger seat while Jeremy gives him a sympathetic look. The fool. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be six and a half feet tall on an eight and a half hour road trip because your boss (and sort of dad) refuses to spring for either a) fixed-location teleporters or b) plane tickets.

“Gabriel. Buddy. We know you. You show up, people are getting hurt, archosaur or no archosaur, you’re sticking around. Basic Moondancer DNA, I think. I’ve met your cousins. No self-preservation instincts whatsoever,” Zach says, “And besides, we’ve not had a proper team roadie since Jeremy joined the team. You two haven’t seen The Van yet.”

“Did we get a van exclusively because I was complaining about leg room?”

“Well, we got it to fit the EMDs, but yeah, sure. Come on, get out of that thing and bask in the glory of The Van. I’m driving,” Maria chirps, flicking him in the nose.

“Don’t mind. I’m going to conk out on the way there.”

“No form bigger than you now.”

“That leaves a great number of options and you  _ know it,” _ he says, shrinking and stretching until he’s nothing more than Charlie-adjacent curled up in on himself in the passenger seat. Hands reach for him, because when there’s an option to hold a small dinosaur during an eight-hour car ride, they’ll take it gladly. Emma steals shotgun from him, and he falls asleep sitting on the dashboard, jet black and deep orange feathers rising and falling with his lungs.

When they skid to a stop, seven hours later, having driven at least a dozen miles an hour above the speed limit the entire time, Gabriel blearily opens his eyes, jumps out the window before the door isn’t even open, and shifts as he makes his way towards the lake that his detector is telling him houses the anomaly and the massive Spinosaurus that has positioned himself under the trees, next to the water, as he basks.

It’s not long before he’s at the water, watching as-

Wait.

Hang on.

Gabriel blinks twice, and turns back to… what he assumes is a Spinosaurus. He’s got the sail, at least, but his tail is thick like a true sea snake’s, or perhaps a newt’s or crocodile’s. And there’s a kid- kind of small, but hard to get a bead on their age from here-, curled up close to his chest. Which he does not seem to be at all interested in eating. Which is a good thing. Gabriel would prefer to not have to explain to grieving parents that their kid was eaten by a theropod the size of a city bus.

“Are you two alright over there?” he hollers, knowing that unless the kid is also an archosauripath (unlikely) or that the Spinosaurus has his own altered version of the mutation (even less likely), it’ll get his attention pretty quickly.

And it certainly does. The Spinosaurus shifts his attention, staring at Gabriel intently while the Moondancer makes his way over.

_ “Well, it’s about time,” _ the Spinosaurus says,  _ “I was wondering when one of you little things would work up the courage to speak to me. This one certainly hasn’t made any attempt of the sort, though they’ve certainly taken a liking to me.” _

“It’s less about courage, and more about capability- I’m rather unique, in that regard. Are you both alright?” he asks, inclining his head to the kid curled up next to the Spinosaurus’s massive claws.

“I’m fine. They left. Didn’t want to mess with him, I guess,” the kid says, waving. They don’t  _ seem _ fine- Gabriel knows bruises well, can see the ones left by handprints. No wonder the kid cozied up to an apex predator- free bodyguard.

_ “I am perfectly healthy,” _ the Spinosaurus intones,  _ “What do you call yourself?” _

“Gabriel,” he replies, “You?”

The name, like Stratus’s had been, is short in Spinosaur, complicated in human, and essentially boils down to-

“Fluvial,” he says, more to himself than anyone else, “Huh. Neat. Nice name. And what’s yours?” he asks the child, who wriggles over Fluvial’s tail. They’re actually older than he’d thought at first glance- probably only a few years younger than him. Fourteen, maybe fifteen?

“My name’s Dylan, my pronouns are they, them, and theirs,” they say. Gabriel grins and waves.

“Alright, nice, and thanks for telling me! How old are you, Dylan?”

“Fifteen.”

“Any powers?”

“I’m a telepath?”

“Oh, same hat!” Gabriel laughs, and offers his hand while Dylan clambers down, “Listen, do you need any help? It looks like Fluvial isn’t kicking up much of a fuss, here, but he still needs to head home before someone decides to try their luck against a Spinosaurus-”

_ “Oh, the world through the doorway isn’t home. I haven’t been home in quite some time.” _

“Okay, so Fluvial needs to get somewhere protected and warm before someone decides to try their luck.”

“I could watch him?” Dylan asks, as Gabriel starts to absorb the heat around them all to construct barriers until the rest of them get here with a torpedo for the lake.

He pauses, a little out of breath. For a Moondancer, he may not be very good at absorbing energy, but what he can get goes a long way with this sort of thing- complicated sensor arrays tied back to the anomaly detector. Fluvial looks at him, curious, nosing the lines in the sand with a huff.

“Well, at least you’re more put together than Stratus is.”

_ “I’m an adult. Your tyrant lizards are children, not much older than yourself- or, well, at least, they  _ were _ children. I will not leave this one.” _

“It’ll get too cold for you here in the winter. Dylan, you fine with going under government protection if it means you stick with Fluvial?” Emma asks, waving the locking device with one hand. Gabriel is glad every day for Andrew figuring out how to spam those things and make them smaller.

“I’m calling you Vi for short. I am not giving someone a nickname that they share with influenza,” Dylan says, poking at Fluvial, who snorts, but clearly doesn’t quite understand.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Emma hums, and tosses the lock to Jeremy. Their resident archaeologist might need pointers about what specifically to do, but he also has the cleverest hands out of any one of them, used to making the smallest of adjustments when he needs to.

“We’ll make sure you’re set,” Gabriel says, looking to the rest of the team, who nod.

“We need a team down in the Southeast, anyways- you think you’d be alright relocating during hurricane season every once in a while?”

“If it gets me out of here, I’m happy to do it,” Dylan growls, grinding their shoes into the sand. Gabriel snorts in agreement.

“Right, then,” Emma says, “We’ll make sure we can get a transport large enough to move Fluvial down south. Until then, you’ll stay at this spot, with-”

“We’ll take guard duty,” Maxie offers, “And we can take care of any anomalies in the region before we move south and start gathering a proper team. We’ll come back to Boston once that’s all taken care of.”

“If the Three Stooges want to, I guess-” Anna says, before her shoulders slump with a sigh, “Nina, can you take a look at Vi here? And can we get Auggie to check on the kid?”

“Are they always like this?” Dylan whispers, inclining their head towards the gathered team. Gabriel grins, and nods.

“You should have seen them when we first started out. You have no idea how overprotective they were. I mean, I  _ know _ I was kind of a baby back then, at least to them, but they went a bit… well, the only word I can think of right now is ‘hogwild’, but that’s not particularly accurate.”

“Is that it?”

“Oh, you should see my  _ dad _ \- eh, sorry, he’s our boss but he took me in when we started out, and I was pretty young, so… my boss is also sort of my dad.”

“He sounds nice.”

“He is.”

* * *

“What… are we doing?” David asks as he steps over a very complicated-looking array laid out over the floor. Andrew and Gabriel look at each other, the floor, and then to David, and then simultaneously begin to speak.

Unfortunately for all of them, it is not in unison. Fortunately for David, he’s ready to find just about anything funny, and his son and his colleague stumbling over each other while they try to explain what’s going on fits well enough.

“Well, I finally found out that frequency-” Andrew starts.

“There’s nothing to suggest that we  _ couldn’t _ -” Gabriel interrupts.

“I mean it technically works with Portkeys there’s no reason we wouldn’t-”

“And I’ve always been good at this detail work, we figured-”

“You have to understand-”

“I’m good at international jumps, too, I mean, I’ve been able to pop over to the Chennai team-”

“We were sick and tired of the full days of driving, okay?” Andrew finally shouts above the chaos as Gabriel nods emphatically, brown eyes wide. The physicist slumps down, and begins scribbling out on the array again.

“And, this-”   
“Oh, I asked around, and we got this one for an international multi-person array. We really only have to give out exact coordinates and the array takes over the rest, though if you need an immediate jump and don’t have time to talk, you can have just a specific location laid  _ into _ the array and use blood to charge it up. Mordechai gave the layout to me. He’s really nice.”

“Oh, good, you’re close to done on it,” Nina says, stepping over one edge carefully as she makes her way towards Leroy’s pen, Doctor Hall close behind on her way to the lions, “You’re going to need that thing pretty soon.”

“Nina, why can’t you just tell us things?” Gabriel asks, “Playing a guessing game isn’t very fun. It’s a pain in the ass and you know it just as well as the rest of us do.”

“Hey, be nice, she’s trying her best,” Maria bites from the bullpen, “We all are. The sooner that array is done, the less time we have to waste in driving to anomalies hundreds of miles away from us.”

“I still don’t know why we never limited the space to just New England, for the record,” Zach points out, “We’re spread thin on the best of days when we try to cover all the Northeast, and if we split our teams like this instead of putting at least one in each of the larger states, we won’t be able to cover everything in time. And in places like Florida, Alaska, Texas, California… there’s no way people could get from one end of the state to another in nearly enough time.”

“It’s in the plans, Mason,” Emma says, pinching the bridge of her nose, before staring expectantly at David. The rest of the team turns to him too, eyes narrowed.

“You think I can pull that kind of budget and manpower out of Congress when it’s this much of a pain just to get funding to feed and house the animals? I’d love that to happen, but I’m still fighting the budget cuts like the rest of us are.”

“Ah, yes, the Great Billionaire Tax Break,” Anna grumbles, spinning in her chair, “I’m half tempted to ask Stratus to just  _ eat-” _

“We can’t say that out loud if we want to keep our jobs, Anna,” Nina says sagely. The rest of the team nods.

Andrew sighs.

“Look, we  _ need _ more people. The anomalies are getting more and more frequent, and soon enough, there’s going to be a breaking point. We’re just not going to be able to cover everything, and we’re going to be running ourselves ragged just trying to cover everything happening in Boston. We. Need. More. People. Or else a lot of folks are going to die.”

David’s intake of breath is a ragged, broken thing.

“I know that better than anyone, Professor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fluvial!!!! i love him
> 
> i know i said 18 chapters. but i am a lying liar who lies.


	18. hellfire in the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the TVOK-side continuation of 25 and 26 in Birdie!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey party people, did ya miss me?

Gabriel snaps back into the bullpen early one morning. None of them remember the day of the week, or even what week it was, really, only that it was pure, unfiltered panic from just about then on.

“Rex in- in Central London, Shoshannah asked for, for backup,” Gabriel tells him as he hops off the jump point, breathing heavily and shaking just a tad.

“Are you alright?” Jeremy asks in reply. Gabriel shakes his head with a growl, and slams his hand down on the desk so hard it splinters.

“Jeremy, we’re fucked.”

Jeremy tries to play it off as something funny, but deep down, he knows. The aching pit of dread at the bottom of his stomach- it opens up wide, ready to tug him down into the terrible knowledge of what is about to come to pass.

“You think-”

“Get Dad, and make sure he’s available for anything PR-related after this. Better they see a decorated veteran, devoted father of three, and man used to leading this setup leading the relief efforts instead of the rotting pumpkin the Electoral College elected.”

There’s some kind of steel in his voice, there, the way he’s casually dismissed his own father as a figurehead and immediately looks to Emma, the way Maria steps quietly to the side during the planning, the way he and Emma share a quiet nod-

He’s always known, in the back of his head, that if anything happened to Emma, it would be Gabriel taking charge, but he  _ sees _ it now, in the way that he snaps from team baby to PhD student on the warpath in a half a second, shouting orders as the anomaly detector slowly whirs to life and is struck with the mute button before it can scream at them to pay attention to it.

Jeremy doesn’t need to be told twice. He hollers at David above all the kerfuffle, makes sure the now sizable Clementine has a safe refuge away from all of this nonsense, and checks on anything and everything the rest of the team asks him to, before he has his own lightbulb moment, and runs.

“Hi,” he tells the woman who opens the door in Cambridge when he skids to a stop outside her home. Diana King crosses her arms.

“You want us to help.”

“Oh, god, yes, please,” Jeremy replies, “If you’re willing to help, we need it. Desperately. Any help you’re willing to give. We’re struggling, here.”

Diana King’s smile is a few miles short of fond, but it’s starting to creep in that direction, which is something Jeremy is… well, he wouldn’t say  _ happy _ about, but any help is good help and they’re desperate, that much is for sure. It’s not like they’d be willing to turn down any proffered assistance even if they and Diana King hated each other, which is certainly not the case.

And, so, because Jeremy loves the people he works with, he is very willing to beg for help. But just Diana’s. Because Diana is great and nice and she works well with the rest of them.

* * *

“Right. Okay,” Dylan says, hanging up the phone and turning to the three concerned soldiers sitting in what’s currently approximating a bullpen here in Virginia until they move to the new site in Louisiana, “He said something about Hell Week, and that it’ll look like easy mode compared to this?”

“Well, shit,” Frank says, and Dylan thinks that probably sums up their reaction to this situation, too, “Dylan, Sam, you stay with Fluvial, get him ready for a fight if it looks like we might need to get him into a nearby lake or river for one. Maxie, you’re with me. We don’t have anything approximating bases any further west than we are now, but I think one of us could probably-”

“I know a couple people out in New Mexico around where that Spaghetti Junction is, the one the whole Roswell incident was based on,” Maxie offers, “They’re Air Force, but they’re decent enough people. Well, the younger crowd is, anyways. I think a quick video chat involving Vi will be enough to convince them, and there’s enough vet clinics in the area that they should be able to drum up enough diazepam for a decent-sized carnivore.”

“Maxie, you sure? Last you mentioned an Air Force guy out in New Mexico you were swearing up a storm.”

“Different guy. This one’s nice, trust me on that much. Besides, push comes to shove we could just get Hewitt on the line and steamroll through the opposition. Listen, Dylan, you’re not leaving here, but I think we could argue to put you on extra comms if you want something to do.”

“I can live with that.”

“Good. Maxie, call your Air Force guys. I’ll see who I can talk to in Florida and Montana, and make sure we keep in contact with the main team or else we’ll miss out on something important again and we won’t find out what until the fact that we didn’t know comes around and kicks us in the ass again.”

“On it, Frank.”

Fluvial’s rattling rumble of assent doesn’t even make Dylan jump anymore as they wave to the immense Spinosaurus currently outside the window of the half-submerged bunker. The Spinosaurus pushes his snout up against the glass where it peeks just above the surface. Dylan wishes they could talk to him like Gabriel can. It would make everything so much easier.

“Hey, bud,” Frank says instead, talking over Dylan, who can’t move right now, “We’re going to have to run for a bit.”

The Spinosaurus snorts, and turns his head to Dylan. They nod.

“If the rest of the team says it’s Hell Week,” they say, “Then it’s Hell Week. You said it’s my job to be on comms, yeah?”

“Right,” Frank says, directing them towards the computer display, “Normally, we’d ask an actual expert to do this, but we don’t have anyone we can spare to be anything other than boots on the ground if this is true, which means you, and this earpiece, for the next few hours. I’ll stay in the area to make sure that you’re not alone, since you can’t exactly take all of this outside so your oversized toothy bodyguard can do his job.”

Dylan’s laugh sounds, to their own ears at least, like the beginnings of a sob.

It’s going to be one  _ very _ long day before any of them can go home, isn’t it.

* * *

Frank doesn’t manage to get in a call to her until about four hours after the dinosaur rampage has begun.

“What, Torres?” she growls as she spins around in her chair. She  _ knows _ he had time to call her, she’d heard about this from Major Castle. Nobody should have to hear about things from Camila Castle. For someone who lives in Miami, Camila is just as good at dodging around a point as a true southern belle, and it makes Isabelle want to strangle her sister on the best of days.

“Thank you for answering, Captain,” he says, voice soft, “They- something awful is going to be happening, and soon.”

“It’s already been happening, Torres. For hours. I’m risking people’s lives by taking this call and not going back to managing my people again, you should be glad I’m on desk duty instead of out in the field so I can take it in the first place.”

“The anomalies might all go out.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? I’ve got a  _ Rhizodus _ in Lake Michigan and some giant ziphosuchian in a shopping mall, if you’re telling me that I  _ won’t _ have to be dealing with this-”

“Isabelle, this is the only possible thing that could be worse than that relating to anomalies right now. I just wanted to warn you. This might be the last time we can talk for a while.”

He hangs up. Isabelle Castle grits her teeth, spots a Saurophaganax on the monitor, and directs the nearest team she can manage.

_ ‘Always keep weapons for yourself,’ _ she thinks, patting the handgun on her hip. She’s heard what happened to the base team they set up in Maine. Poor folks. She never wants to be in a situation that even mildly resembles that one, too frightened to move and having nothing whatsoever to defend herself with, though she will happily hand over her weapons if it means someone else will feel safer about her being in the room with them.

And, with nothing even resembling a warning, the anomalies shut off, even the ones she can see in the corners of her screen. The warning buzzes in the back of her head, and she hopes beyond hope that this is it, that this is all that will happen, that Frank is wrong and nothing more is going to occur and there’s going to be nothing even resembling a-

Ah, fuck.

The lights go out, seemingly on schedule, and she knows, deep down, that they’re going out everywhere else, too. They flicker back on, before long, but the damage is already done- Isabelle’s mind spills out past her, wonders how many ventilators shut off for just a moment too long, how many dialysis machines, how many critical moments were interrupted and how many people are going to die because of just this moment-

It’s not good. But Isabelle’s never been one to back down from a fight, and if this is how the world ends- with a bang- then she’s not going to complain all that much. Better the apocalypse come with a bang than a whimper.

* * *

It’s right about when Gabriel’s trying to talk down his second Tyrannosaurus of the day when he’s hit by his cousin’s mental sledgehammer so hard he practically doubles over.

“Can you give me a moment?” he asks, not realizing that the anomaly has shut behind the creature. To be fair, the subadult Rex doesn’t either, too busy making concerned snuffling noises at the oversized mammal throwing his paws over his ears in a futile attempt to block out the mental sound.

_ “Oh no,” _ the Rex hisses, as he settles down onto the ground. Gabriel whines, but manages to shake his head and shift back, staring at the empty, open space where the anomaly was.

“If this is over with, I think we have somewhere you could go,” he says, “If not-”

And the universe likes to prove when Gabriel is incorrect, apparently, because the lights go out, and the pain in his head doubles or triples (he’s not entirely sure). There’s confusion and pain echoing all across his network, but there’s one threat that remains the same-

_ What do we do now? _

Are they just supposed to sit here and wait until the Brits figure out how to solve the problem?

“I mean, they made the problem in the first place, it’s only fair they fix it. You got a name?”

The rumbled out reply is, like all theropod names, something complex on the surface and not by that much when he digs down into it a little.

“Catigern sound alright?”

The Rex rumbles his assent, while the Moondancer tries his best to contact the rest of his team again. He’s not going to sit around and wait until the issue is solved if he can manage to do something other than that, even if it just means powering some hospital or another until the proper power can come back on and they don’t have to worry about anything of this sort anymore.

“Hey, can you take Catigern back to the tyrannosaur zone and help me see if I can get him to get along with the girls? If we’re done for the moment, I want us to have as many loose ends wrapped up as we can manage, and I think he’s our biggest archosaur right now,” Gabriel calls to Anna, who nods, and grabs one of the nearby empty eighteen-wheelers.

This is going to be a long day, that much is for sure. He knows better than to try to pick a fight with any one of the idiots who thinks it’s a good idea to try to take over the operation (like David is clearly trying to avoid himself), and instead quietly introduces Cat to the other three.

There’s come Colonel that tries to assemble the team under his control. Everyone in the group raises their collective eyebrows, ignores him, and continues on with their normal jobs. The filter on Leroy’s pond is hooked up to the backup generator. The doors to the night pens are slammed open permanently. The feeding for various other critters is taken offline. Sam arrives, harried, to assist in keeping the antivenom collection they’ve accumulated cool, while a few people out of time trickle in over the next few hours.

Gabriel’s job is mostly supervisory and occasionally to argue with various archosaurs as he frantically tries to explain what’s happening and shut his cousin out of his head, but it still leaves him dead on his feet several hours later, clinging to the coffee in his hands like it’s his savior.

“Even if it works,” he says, so quietly that only Anna seems to hear, “Even if they stop the end of the world that they started not so long ago, are we just going to come back to more of this? Are we just going to have to clamber through the carnage resulting from hundreds upon hundreds of anomalies, all across the nation, all across the  _ world _ , before it stops? If it even stops at all?”

Anna sighs.

“We’re just going to have to trust ‘em. And I know it sucks, bud, it sucks for every one of us. But we’re going to have to deal. Now, I think we were called in for a search and rescue about thirty seconds ago? Mammoth slammed into a bus out in the middle of the woods, they can’t find some of the kids and they figured noses like ours attached to person-brain would actually be pretty helpful.”

Gabriel sighs, and scrubs at his face. Funny. He hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“Alright,” he says, “Let’s do this. Closer to here or one of the points we can jump to?”

“Western Mass,” she replies simply, and Gabriel groans.

He know what  _ that _ means. More driving.

* * *

“I thought they said it was a  _ mammoth!” _ Gabriel hisses at her, and Anna shrugs, though she, too, isn’t particularly excited about the new situation.

“You think they meant ‘mammoth’ as in ‘huge’? That would track,” she replies, eyeing the sauropod crossing their path. Gabriel groans.

“That specific species is native to-”

“Texas and Oklahoma during the Early Cretaceous period, I am very much aware,” Anna replies. Gabriel blinks, and smacks his head.

“Right, your bachelor’s was in paleontology, I completely forgot. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all good. But if we’re talking Texas and Oklahoma during the Early Cretaceous, we have one big carnivore that shouldn’t ever be too far from our minds.”

Gabriel’s breath is a shudder as he makes his way across another log, towards the crashed bus. The sauropod eyes them dubiously, but continues on, seemingly forgetting them.

“You’re right,” he says, seemingly out of the blue. Anna knows she is, but he doesn’t admit it often enough for her liking, so she’ll let him continue, “If the anomaly is big enough to let a sauropod-  _ any _ sauropod- through, it’s definitely large enough for an  _ Acrocanthosaurus.” _

Anna’s been thinking it ever since they spotted the sauropod tracks, but hearing it said aloud is a completely different matter. She feels like she did three years ago, in a warehouse with glowing light in front of her eyes, knowing that there’s something worlds bigger and meaner than she is out there, lurking in the dark.

She hears breathing.

Heavy breathing. 

_ Hungry _ breathing.

“It’s here already,” she says under her breath, soft enough that only Gabriel will pick up on it. Normally dark eyes flash as gold as they are in his wolf skin as the light from the flashlight that neither of them need hits them.

“Right. Okay. HEY!” he shouts, and if Anna wasn’t used to this nonsense by now she might have just  _ shot _ him because that’s how  _ loud _ the Moondancer makes himself in that moment-

“I don’t know where you are exactly, but I’d like to talk!”

That’s not forceful enough for a carcharodontosaurid, as they’ve learned the hard way over the years, but-

“HEY! LISTEN TO ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!”

Oh, that might work. Large carnivores respond surprisingly well to yelling. Anna thinks it might be because they’re used to little things like them just running, and not, well-

Not shouting at carnivores several times their size.

If she didn’t currently feel like the final girl in an early 2000’s slasher film, she might have laughed. Alas, she does, in fact, feel like the final girl in an early 2000’s slasher film, so she runs and begins to gather the missing children, who have done the smart thing and begun to hide from the scary monsters in the woods. Anna really wishes that was her right now, unaware of all of the crazy shit that’s gone down in the past three years, unaware of anomalies and time travel in general and just trying to poke and prod at a shiny light portal in a warehouse, with her very alive co-workers all present.

Gabriel nearly falls back into said light portal when it spins to life. They stare, dumbfounded.

“Holy shit,” he says, and lets the Acrocanthosaurus through.

Holy shit, indeed.

Whatever the Brits did must have worked.

* * *

“I cannot  _ believe _ we don’t get to take a break until this Convergence bullshit is over,” Gabriel whines over the phone to an entirely non-enthusiastic Shoshannah.

_ “Listen, the world didn’t end. I think we can handle some long hours.” _

“Yeah, but a hell of a lot of people are still going to die, because this time’s population density doesn’t mesh well with large carnivores and time travel.”

_ “True enough.” _

* * *

When it finally  _ does _ end, the entire team sleeps for a week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! okay okay!
> 
> this is neat!
> 
> (also next chapter is 30% chat log btw)


	19. group decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is about 30% chat log and is 100% sappy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh wow... oh wow i am done, huh

“I cannot believe we have a T Rex,” Jeremy says, staring through one of the observation windows into the quarantine pen. Cat cocks his heavy head to the side and snuffles at the glass.

“I can’t believe we just spent half a week asleep,” Gabriel replies from the other side of the glass, sitting next to Cat, who sits down and curls his massive body around the Moondancer.

Gabriel’s smug grin radiates through the base, seemingly summoning a still very tired Sam Owens, who’s managed to argue his way into staying in Boston for a few more days before he heads back down to Virginia.

“So, in the past few weeks, we’ve managed to acquire how many large theropods, exactly?” he asks. Jeremy grins back at him.

“Fluvial, obviously, and then Catigern over here, and then I think there’s a team up in Illinois that snagged an Acrocanthosaurus on accident, she’s going to be showing up here some time within the next few days.”

“This isn’t something to be happy about, bone boy number two,” Sam grumbles, “Acros aren’t closely related to our tyrannosaurs at  _ all, _ and there’s no confirmation that we’re going to be able to convince them to get along like we could with Charlie and Clementine.”

“How long do you think?” Gabriel asks, pressing his face up against the glass. Jeremy blinks and shakes his head in a confused double take. The Moondancer rolls his eyes and presses a warm hand against the glass, releasing just a fraction of the accumulated heat over the past few days.

“You’re getting better at that,” Sam offers up, and Gabriel grins. Jeremy looks at them both, confused.

“Absorption. Sam’s saying I’m getting better at building up a greater reserve at any given time.”

“His reserves were smaller than the average Moondancer’s early on, but his fine control is good and continues to improve. And we’ve been working on it.”

The glass, for one moment that would have sent him into heart palpitations if he wasn’t absolutely unafraid of the tyrannosaur on the other side of it, vanishes, and Gabriel gives Sam a fist bump. Cat sticks his snout through the window. Jeremy, instead of being frightened out of his mind like he would have been when he was a lowly student a couple months short of starting grad school, grins. He also offers snout scritches which, as anyone at the Boston Anomaly Research Center could tell you, is the quickest way to a tyrannosaur’s heart. Cat coos fondly, though it does sound a bit like a chainsaw starting up.

Jeremy laughs, and leans higher to continue scratching the rex’s itchy spots along his muzzle.

Cat backs away after, as does Jeremy, and the glass is back again. Pity. One of these days, he’s going to need to get a photo of that. Everyone is going to say it’s photoshop, but people are then also going to think he’s a) amazing at Photoshop and b) amazing at finding realistic images of a subadult Tyrannosaurus rex.

“No, but how long about what?” he finally asks, and Gabriel narrows his eyes, before looking up and nodding.

“Oh, I was just wondering how long it’ll be before the international folks toss us another large theropod that they can’t handle.”

“Not long, I bet,” Jeremy hums, “If the Canadians hadn’t shot themselves in the foot already, we’d probably have another from them by now.”

“What kind do you want to bet on?”

“I’m thinking some kind of tyrannosaur, again. We were known for it back when there were only two of them here, and we’re probably going to be even better known for it now that we’ve got four of them,” Sam offers.

“I’m placing my bets on an allosaur of some sort, maybe  _ fragilis _ specifically, maybe not. We’ve already got a Spinosaurus, a carcharodontosaurid, and four tyrannosaurs,” Jeremy counters. Gabriel coughs politely to get their attention, and waves.

“Carnotaurus.”

Jeremy raises his eyebrows.

“I’m betting. How much? I’m betting we get a Carnotaurus to deal with by the end of 2020.”

“Oh, neat, we’re doing time limit bets?” Sam asks with a grin, leaning against the glass.

“Ah, fuck, we’re  _ definitely _ getting another tyrannosaur by the end of 2020.”

“Oh, new bet, then. Which one?” Gabriel hums.

“What counts as a tyrannosaur?”

“Tyrannosauridae.”

“I’m betting on anything from Albertosaurinae,” Sam says, “Gorgosaurus or another Albertosaurus most likely, probably from Canada.”

“Oh, okay, so we’re betting from Tyrannosaurinae, then,” Gabriel says to Jeremy, “Uh… Nanuqsaurus is what I’m betting on. Nanuq by the end of 2020, and if not that, then another Das, from here in the Northeast.”

“I guess that leaves me, then,” Jeremy hums, “Tarbosaurus or a Rex, from one of the non-North American ARC teams.”

“It’s settled, then. We just have to figure out how much to bet.”

* * *

“The brats giving you trouble again?” Emma asks. David groans, and doesn’t budge from his spot on the couch below the window.

“I will never move from this spot. Not once. In my entire life,” he replies, and flops over onto his back so that his front can be warmed by the sun. Emma snorts.

“Good thing you’re not in uniform, or that behavior would get you chewed out,” she jokes, and sits on the small portion of couch he hasn’t taken for himself yet. David huffs, and sits up, which is right about when Zach thinks it’s a good idea to take the extra space that opens itself up. Andrew sits down with them not that long after, and Emma smiles.

“How long do you think before things really start getting hectic again?” Zach asks. Andrew seems to take this as a challenge. Emma’s glad that she and David had the foresight to set up chalkboards in the same room as the sun nap couch, because he’s begun attacking it as soon as he’s been offered the opportunity.

“To be honest,” David whispers, “These two are giving me more trouble right now than any one of my kids does on a daily basis.”

“Oh, I can see that. How are Morgan and Zoe, by the way?”

“Good, they’re good. We’re all doing alright, though they’re starting to throw a collective fit about the fact that they haven’t seen Charlie in weeks while Gabriel gets to see him all the time. I think Zoe might have made the internal connection between working with me and getting to see the dinosaurs more often and she’s begun insisting she learn mechanical engineering. Why mechanical engineering, I don’t-”

“New anomaly gear.”

“Oh, shit, you’re right.”

“Major, one thing you never seem to learn is that I am always right.”

* * *

“My second cousin is getting married,” Gabriel says, leaning over the couch. Anna shrugs her shoulders, and Gabriel huffs.

“Zehavi. Zanna’s sister.”

“Oh, Zanna’s… awful,” Anna replies, though she clearly is dancing around saying the word she actually wants to say. Gabriel shrugs his shoulders.

“She’s fine, she’s just very committed to great-aunt Ziva, or at least that’s what Rebecca and Zehavi say,” Gabriel hums, “Zehavi’s much more team-oriented and over the past two years Rebecca has done nothing but try to get me UK citizenship so I think she hasn’t drunk the family Kool-Aid yet, and then most of the US folks are in the same boat, but a few are definitely more Ziva-oriented.”

“Excuse me?” Anna replies, “Is there some kind of power struggle going on in your family or some shit?”

Gabriel cocks his head to the side, a bit curious at himself, before nodding decisively.

“Sort of. More along the lines of Ziva’s kind of the boss of the family no matter what, but her control isn’t unilateral. There’s no specific hierarchy, it’s just that when something needs to be done she’s the best at ordering people around, or so says Aunt Rebecca.”

“Sounds like a power struggle.”

“More like Zehavi’s not particularly keen on listening to her grandmother over her pack,” Gabriel hums.

His phone pings. Oh. Group server. That’s neat.

* * *

**Zehavi:** you know you can take the teleporter, right? nobody will be mad at you for using it outside of work.

**birdbrain** changed their name to  **raptor wielder**

**dinosaurenthusiast#16** changed their name to  **tyrannosaur wielder**

**raptor wielder:** don’t copy me u fool

**tyrannosaur wielder:** rip. also since when do we have a server???

**Zehavi:** since i decided my wedding invitations were happening over discord. also if you can’t go no hard feelings. you all are getting an acro, right?   
  


**tyrannosaur wielder:** a) it’s y’all you heathen

**tyrannosaur wielder:** b) yes. in 2 days

**bantersearch** changed their name to  **Cassius**

**Cassius:** Why is this a family server and not a work server? Pretty sure not everyone here is in the know.

**Zehavi:** lol cuz that’s like three people and i already banned them

**brooklynbaby:** zehavi you are in your late twenties your lol card has been revoked by now

**brooklynbaby:** also the fact that i have not been tapped for a government dino-chasing program is foolish i would like to join immediately

**Cassius:** Davina don’t you hate the US government?

**brooklynbaby:** the ARC is chill

–> **tennisthemenace** slid into the server

**tennisthemenace** changed their name to  **Ari**

**Ari:** oh this is an argument just waiting to happen

**tennisthemenace** has left the server

**raptor wielder:** anyways. First of all  **@Cassius** what the fuck does tennis have to do with your daughter. Second of all guess who’s got a date!!!!

**brooklynbaby:** zehavi? bc she’s getting married?

**tyrannosaur wielder:** oh wow you are really behind

**tyrannosaur wielder:** it’s shosh

**tyrannosaur wielder:** she’s finally actually going to go on a date with esme

**raptor wielder:** hell yeah i am!!!!

**tyrannosaur wielder:** it’s honestly p cute how besotted she is

**raptor wielder:** since when do u use the word “besotted”

**raptor wielder:** ALSO u have a bf ur not allowed to talk

**Gremlin Man:** your entire family is ridiculous none of you are allowed to talk

**tyrannosaur wielder:** who are you????

**Gremlin Man** changed their name to  **Patrick**

**raptor wielder** uploaded an image

[ **ID:** an meme with block white letters. The image below the letters is the pink starfish character Patrick Star from the show SpongeBob SquarePants, at the register of the Krusty Krab, holding a phone and looking irritatedly at it. The block white text reads “is this the Krusty Krab” above his head and “No, this is Patrick!” below]

**Patrick:** mine own niece, who roasts me like this

**tyrannosaur wielder:** shut up it wasn’t even a good meme

**raptor wielder:** **@tyrannosaur wielder** BETRAYAL IS AFOOT!

**tyrannosaur wielder:** …

**tyrannosaur wielder:** WTF?

* * *

The Acrocanthosaurus arrives early one morning, in what appears to be a dairy truck. This is upsetting for the entire team because, for some reason, they’ve all hyped themselves up for ice cream. This is mostly Frank’s doing, because Frank is an asshole.

Maria decides to go get ice cream anyways, because she’s amazing like that and the entire team, including her wife, who she loves very much, has been whining nonstop for the past hour. She’s going to have some  _ words _ with Frank about telling people that the truck harboring a large theropod is actually harboring food. She does have words with him, and becomes progressively more irritable as he tries to backpedal by saying that technically meat is food, and then just shoves Dylan in front of the camera on his end.

Dylan is very sweet and thoughtful, because they’re a wonderfully behaved child and an absolute champion and they don’t tell random people that carcharodontosaurids are actually ice cream.

(Maria’s stability may not be the best right now. That may or may not be because the end of the world almost happened last week, there’s still a rotten orange, though now a mindwiped rotten orange, in charge of her country, and she doesn’t have the capability to deal with pranks in any capacity right now no matter how harmless they may seem at first. And it wasn’t harmless, too- if Gabriel hadn’t been there when they’d opened the truck, people could have  _ died.) _

“Next time,” she says over the video call, “Make this joke about an animal that’s  _ not _ capable of ripping someone in half with its teeth.”

Frank, in the far background, looks rather put out. Being around a Spinosaurus as well-mannered as Fluvial must have skewed his priorities.

She turns off the video call and spins around in her chair, just in time for an exhausted-looking Gabriel to meander into the bullpen, shoving an entire pint of chocolate ice cream into his mouth.

Maria raises an eyebrow, and Gabriel sighs, and slumps down onto the floor.

“Well?”

“Her name is Aleta- or at least, her name is roughly equivalent to Aleta. Kind of a whole truthful with some feather covering thing. Also, thank you for the ice cream.”

“You’re welcome,” Maria replies, “Frank isn’t getting any.”

“No, he is not.”

* * *

**tyrannosaur wielder** changed their name to  **LART**

**LART:** if you’re not from MA you won’t get it

**raptor wielder:** _you’re_ not from masachusets. you’re from georgia. also everyone here knows what a large animal response team is it is _not_ a masachusets exclusive thing.

**LART:** it’s massachusetts

**LART:** and we literally dealt with these folks when we wrangled the lions so you know what?

**raptor wielder:** lol i do not care how the us spells its states and it’s v bold of u to assume i do

**LART** changed their name to  **Large Animal Wrangler**

**raptor wielder:** ok fair

**raptor wielder:** you all do tend to deal with massive animals more than we do

**Large Animal Wrangler:** it’s bc our anomalies aren’t as weirdly centralized as yours

**Large Animal Wrangler:** i have no idea why your anomalies show up in the same part of england 90% of the time but we set up the teleporters specifically bc it’s a pain in the ass to drive five hours for every anomaly

**Large Animal Wrangler:** especially when you’re 6’6” and no matter what you do you’re cramped in the van

**raptor wielder:** may ur memory be a blessing

**Zehavi 👑** renamed the chat  **i thought this was about my wedding**

**raptor wielder:** lol ok

**raptor wielder:** gabe u coming????

**Large Animal Wrangler:** prolly not

**Large Animal Wrangler:** Aleta’s well-behaved but i’m not stupid enough to leave two brand-new large carnivores in with a previously established group.

**Zehavi:** ok!!! Stay safe!

**Large Animal Wrangler:** I will!

* * *

_ “You okay, brat?” _ Honey asks, curled up next to Stratus on the grass outside, letting the sun seep into her feathers and cast them more golden than even their usual light.

“Yeah, I’m all good,” Gabriel responds, and stretches. Clementine runs across the field behind them, and Gabriel carefully checks the air for drones. They’re close enough to the tree line that a satellite won’t get a clear photo of the dinosaurs, but it’s always good to check for drones.

_ “Yeah, you look okay,” _ Stratus rumbles, red eyes examining him carefully. The Daspletosaurus would probably have some sort of soft smile on her face if she were human. Unfortunately, she can’t. Because scales.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

_ “Kid, ever since I met you, you’ve been at least a little nervous. Look at you now- you’re looking for drones, sure, but otherwise you’re not looking over your shoulder at all. Despite the massive government conspiracy.” _

“You’ve been watching too much television.”

_ “Hey, it passes the time.” _

Gabriel can’t really argue with that. He slips into his other skin, and curls up next to the tyrannosaurs, not even batting an eye when first Anna, then Jeremy comes to join him in the dappled sunlight.

He’s halfway to properly asleep when it sinks in.

He loves summer up north, loves how the sun sinks into his bones but never as deep as it does back south, back… it’s not home anymore. He can’t call it that. He’s home  _ now, _ up here, with some of the biggest carnivores to ever walk the land at his side and the deep-seated knowing that he is  _ loved _ in his heart.

When he opens his eyes, he’s not surprised to see the rest of the team there, talking in low tones. Jeremy’s fallen asleep too, while Anna seems to be on her way and Nina is definitely about ten minutes from passing out properly.

Maria is slumped against Stratus’s shoulders, having some sort of discussion over a movie Gabriel hasn’t ever gotten around to watching with Emma, while David seems to be trying his best to discuss various methods of pest control with Honey, of all creatures. Clementine’s clambered on top of his hackles, and Gabriel doesn’t have the heart to shake her off.

The Masons brought food. Good food, by the smell of it. Gabriel whines until Clementine gets off of his shoulders willingly in a huff. She doesn’t seem to realize she’s over a hundred pounds, and that he definitely notices now when the baby that was once small and orange sees it fit to use him as a chair.

“So,” Gabriel says once he’s shifted back, “Wouldn’t it suck, so much, if we got called back right now?”

Jeremy throws a pillow- did he seriously bring a  _ pillow _ out here- at Gabriel’s head.

“Don’t even joke about that, Gabe, I swear.”

“Oh, fight me, Cohen.”

“If that was ‘bite me’ I had an appropriate response-”

Maria snorts in disbelief.

“Oh, shut up. But I’m not fighting anyone with enhanced strength. That’s just idiotic.”

“Hey, anyone want to place bets on when the next anomaly we deal with will be, though? David’s not allowed, David’s weird luck would send us spiraling into yet another Hell Week,” Zach says. Gabriel nearly chokes on the sandwich he’s shoving into his mouth.

“He would, though,” Andrew offers, “And I put my bets on the Ordovician, we don’t see that nearly as often as we probably should.”

“Cretaceous,” Gabriel hums, and everyone looks at him strangely.

_ “Really? Even I know you all are due for a different one,” _ Stratus rumbles.

“There’s no reason to say that something’s ‘due’ aside from a deadline. It’s not proven to mean anything. And, because we get so many Cretaceous anomalies, I say Cretaceous.”

“Triassic!” Jeremy shouts.

“Aquatic Cretacous, we never get it,” Anna points out.

“Aquatic Jurassic,” says Maria.

“Normal Jurassic,” counters Zach.

“You’re all fools. Carboniferous,” Emma bets.

“Devonian,” says Nina, finally, while David snorts.

As it turns out, they’re all right, because spaghetti junctions that are vertical instead of horizontal are a) a thing and b) a pain.

Gabriel  _ will _ complain about this later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't think I feel as *empty* about this one ending since I've hyped myself up so much for a flash and a bang, but it's still... whoa... to see how much work I've done in such a small amount of time.

**Author's Note:**

> whoa, hey! this is not the ch1 endnote anymore!  
> anyways, general rules are my standard rules: I post the new chapter whenever I finish the chapter after it.


End file.
